Gamers old enough to remember playing the original Crackdown on the Xbox 360 will remember that it was also one of the games that helped sell the console. Its popularity was such that even now, quotes like "skills for kills, Agent" can bring back a flood of memories. All talk of the series seems to have gone quiet since 2019's Crackdown 3, however, which raises the question of whether a fourth game will ever happen.
The premise of the Crackdown series is that players are dropped into futuristic cities overrun by malevolent organizations, where they get to fight back as a superpowered Agent, armed not just with a range of weapons and vehicles, but immense strength and speed that only improves as the story progresses. By the end of any given game, players are so powerful that they can leap between buildings and brush aside most individual enemies like they were mosquitos.
Crackdown 3 was developed by England's Sumo Digital, and the company is certainly busy hiring - job listings show it's looking for a legion of artists, designers, programmers, and more. That's consistent with developing a large-scale project, which Crackdown 4 would be. In fact, one of the Senior Game Designer openings mentions "an established AAA open-world action franchise," and a Lead Level Designer position likewise mentions a "AAA open-world action game." Neither of the Lead Game Designer roles use the same language, but Sumo does have several subsidiary studios in order to handle multiple projects. Microsoft in turn might want a new Crackdown to show off the horsepower in the Xbox Series X/S - open-world action is often some of the most demanding on GPUs and flash storage.
If there's a case against a Crackdown 4 happening, there are two core arguments. The first is a lack of rumors - while Sumo has games in development, there's nothing concrete to say a Crackdown title is one of them. The second is that Crackdown 3 wasn't received terribly well. It garnered mixed reviews at best, typically criticized for being bland and not innovating much over its predecessor, released nine years earlier. Its competitive multiplayer mode - Wrecking Zone - was almost instantly forgotten. Given all that, it's hard to imagine a sequel getting greenlit without some impressive new ideas and a lot of faith.
That said, Crackdown is still a well-known series with a fair number of fans, and there are examples of game franchises bouncing back after a disappointing entry or two. The existence of Crackdown 4 may be uncertain, but activity at Sumo combined with Microsoft's interests and a nostalgic fanbase do make it look more likely. It may just be a matter of waiting for confirmation.
Source: Sumo Digital
source https://screenrant.com/will-crackdown-4-release-xbox-sumo-digital-microsoft/
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