Contraband is coming to Xbox consoles and PC from developer Avalanche Studios, the same team that worked on the Just Cause series. The project will be an open-world cooperative game, though not much else is known about it.
The company showed a brief teaser trailer for Contraband as part of Microsoft’s E3 showcase.
While we don’t know much about the upcoming game, we do know it’ll be published by Microsoft, so it’s unlikely to come other platforms outside of the Xbox and PC ecosystem.
According to a Microsoft press release, “Contraband is a co-op smuggler’s paradise set in the fictional world of 1970s Bayan, and our most ambitious and spectacular game to date.”
“We’re taking everything that we’ve learned from 18 years of being at the forefront of creating beautiful, vast open game worlds filled with stunning vistas and incredible, emergent gameplay moments.”
Avalanche Studio’s last game, Rage 2, launched in 2019. Before that, it developed the Just Cause series, with the first entry launching in 2006, Just Cause 2 in 2010, Just Cause 3 in 2015, and Just Cause 4 in 2018.
Microsoft revealed it was in talks with Avalanche about this project around three years ago. It’s unclear when development on Contraband started, but it’ll likely be a while before it launches. For now, the Just Cause series will likely be dormant while the team works on this new project with Microsoft.
Contraband is still early in development, and its release date is unknown. Microsoft says it looks “forward to sharing more details about Contraband in the future.”
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