Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Reviews

Crackdown 3: Our First Take

'Crackdown 3' is a choose-your-own-adventure game about irresponsible policing

Will Fulton
By
Crackdown 3: Our First Take
“'Crackdown 3' brings the series' super-powered action back in a truly open world.”
Pros
  • Fun, super-powered action
  • Organic progression system
  • Truly open world gameplay structure
Cons
  • Full destruction physics limited to multiplayer

Emerging from relative radio silence after its explosive reveal in 2015, Crackdown 3 is back at E3 in full force. We had a chance to play through a ten minute demo and chat with design director Gareth Wilson about the upcoming third-person action game.

In Crackdown 3’s future, the world has been ravaged by a series of terrorist attacks using a mysterious new weapon called Chimera. You work for an elite agency, sent in to track Chimera to its source and stop the attacks. The trail sends you to New Providence, a small, urban island in the Pacific run by a shadowy corporation. After an ambush leaves you reeling, you (and up to three fellow agents in co-op) will gather your wits to take down the criminal organization running the island, and find out who is behind the attacks.

Related

Virtuous cycles of badassery

The best way to investigate is, of course, to fly around the city like a badass superhero, blowing up everything in your path. The closest gameplay analog in recent memory is definitely Saints Row IV. While Crackdown 3 isn’t quite as overtly irreverent as Volition’s deliberately silly GTA-like, it embraces the same bombastic sensibility and over-the-top power fantasy.

It’s all designed around being completely freeform, completely open.

The ludicrous powers are improved through a system very similar to the original Crackdown. Characters have stats for agility, gunplay, melee, explosives, and driving. Rather than unlocking generic points and spending them as you see fit, skills are improved by performing the relevant activity. Taking out enemies with guns or explosives add to the respective skill, allowing you to do more damage as they level up. Collecting agility orbs (positioned in tough to reach places) increases your speed and the height of your jump (and double jump).

This direct feedback between actions and capabilities is a great way for players to organically customize their play style. It felt great in the original, and it still feels great here. 

An actual open world

The other design feature that really piqued our interest is how truly open gameplay will be in the campaign mode. “There’s no ‘mission failed’ screen,” Wilson told us. “The missions are open from the very start, and you can do whatever the hell you want.”

Your goal is to take down the city’s Kingpin by defeating their captains and lieutenants to whittle away their support. The order in which you eliminate them is completely up to you. Like in Breath of the Wild, skilled (or foolhardy) players can skip all that and head right for the Kingpin as soon as they land. 

If you take the sensible course and opt to take down the Kingpin’s support first, they will eventually take notice. “As you start damaging a particular area of the city, the gang leaders get pissed off at you and start retaliating, but those retaliations can happen anywhere in the city,” Wilson told us. “If you take out enough of the captains and lieutenants, eventually the Kingpin will be like ‘Fuck you, then,’ and she’ll send in a load of guys after you.”

While many ostensibly open world games actually hold your hand quite a bit in the mission structure, Crackdown 3 is ok with letting you skip through content as you please. Wilson said he would rather encourage people to play through repeatedly and find new things, instead of ensuring that every player goes through all of the content in one go. “I want people to replay the game plenty of times,” he explained, “so you can take your level five agent back into a new game, and we’re going to have cool challenges and leader board, around things like how quickly can you take out all of the guys in one go.”

Multi-player means more chaos

Sumo only had the campaign at E3 this year, so we did not get to experience the much-vaunted destruction physics, which will feature prominently in multiplayer matches. In the single-player mode, destruction is limited to the traditional, props-based physics we’re used to seeing in games like Just Cause. Multiplayer, supported by cloud computing, will empower players to literally level the entire playing field.

Our gameplay demo was a condensed and deliberately crazy slice of the overall experience, so we’ll have to wait and see how the flow and pace works in context. As a taste of the explosive insanity that’s possible, however, it left us hungry for more.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Will Fulton
Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
Nintendo confirms that it won’t be part of E3 2023
Pikmin and Bulborb in Pikmin 4.

Nintendo has confirmed reports that it won't be participating in E3 2023, meaning the gaming trade show will be missing one of its key vendors when it returns in-person this June.
"We approach our involvement in any event on a case-by-case basis and are always considering various ways to engage with our fans," a Nintendo spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. "Since this year’s E3 show didn’t fit into our plans, we have made the decision to not participate. However, we have been and continue to be a strong supporter of the ESA [Entertainment Software Association] and E3."
After taking 2020 and 2022 off and being digital-only in 2021, this year was supposed to mark the grand return of E3, which was once a dominant game industry trade show that attracted every big video game company. Although Sony hasn't participated since 2019, it still came as a shock in January when IGN reported that both Nintendo and Microsoft would not be attending E3 this year as well. It appears that the report is true, as Microsoft has not confirmed any E3-related events outside of its independently run Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase.
Nintendo skipping E3 2023 not only takes away a vendor that dominated the show floor in previous years, but also raises questions about whether or not the company will hold an exciting Nintendo Direct around then. While Nintendo typically holds a big showcase with lots of first-party game announcements around June every year, in 2022 it only held a third-party driven Partner Showcase in June. Now that we know it won't be at E3 2023, we're left to wonder when exactly then next big Nintendo Direct will be. 
E3 2023 will take place between June 13 and June 16, but don't expect Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft to have a big presence there.

Read more
Summer Game Fest returns just before E3 2023 next June
The official artwork confirming Summer Game Fest's return on June 8, 2023.

Geoff Keighley has confirmed when Summer Game Fest will return in June 2023. It will begin with a live kickoff show on June 8, 2023, placing Keighley's game announcement alternative less than a week before E3's grand (intended) 2023 return.
Unlike past years, Summer Game Fest Live Kickoff 2023 will feature a live audience, like Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards. It will take place in the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park, with tickets going on sale in early 2023. It will still be livestreamed across platforms like YouTube and Twitch, though. It's currently unknown who's participating, how long Summer Game Fest will run afterward, or if it will feature a Summer Game Fest Play Days-like element for fans. Still, Keighley says all of that info will be revealed ahead of the event next year, teasing what people can expect. 
"In keeping with tradition, we'll have tons of exciting announcements from the developers that are pushing the games industry forward, and will once again highlight other publisher digital events, demos, and more surprises to be announced in the coming months," Keighley says in a press release. 
That June 8 start date, and the other Summer Game Fest events likely to follow, put Keighley's show just ahead of E3 2023. The ESA and ReedPop plan to bring E3 back between June 13 and June 16, 2023. With five days of lead time on E3, Summer Game Fest can coexist with the long-running gaming conference and encompass the plethora of publisher showcases that tend to precede E3.
Geoff Keighley made it clear that he wants Summer Game Fest and E3 to coexist for a while. "We've had extensive conversations with ReedPop about E3," he said in an interview with Epic Games Store. "I think it'll kind of fit together and flow kind of from what we're doing into what they're doing and stuff. E3, to me, is this kind of master brand that represents gaming news in June."
With the start date of Summer Game Fest confirmed, the coexistence of these two summer gaming events is a reality. Summer Game Fest returns on June 8, 2023.

Read more
E3 2023 returns in June with separate business and consumer days
The logo for E3 2023.

E3 2023 will return as an in-person event from June 13 to June 16, 2023, as announced by ReedPop today.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) already revealed that E3 will return in 2023, but now we know exactly when the event will take place, along with several other key details. E3 will once again take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center after a four-year hiatus, but will incorporate separate days for industry professionals and general consumers.

Read more