Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat interviewed Joe Staten, one of Halo’s creators, about working on Crackdown 3, one of Microsoft’s most ambitious exclusives.
When you play the Wrecking Zone multiplayer mode of Crackdown 3, you’ll notice how completely destructible the environment is. You can shoot out the bottom of a skyscraper with rockets and bring the entire building down. Of course, while you’re doing that, someone else in the four-versus-four battle will probably take you out.
I played a preview of the third-person action platformer game coming from Microsoft and Sumo Digital. I played terribly at multiplayer, but Joe Staten, creative director at Microsoft Studios, was kind enough not to laugh at me. Staten, who was one of the original creators of Halo at Bungie, joined the Crackdown project in 2014 and helped bring it home.
The original creators left the project and Microsoft abandoned the previous launch date of 2016, but now the game is complete and full of bombastic gameplay from the likes of characters like a digital version of Terry Crews .
Crackdown 3 is a follow up to 2010’s Crackdown 2 and 2007’s Crackdown. Part of what took so long was the ambition to add cloud processing to the game. The multiplayer zone has complete destructibility because the player’s machine can reach out on the cloud and tap Microsoft’s Azure technology, allowing a single machine to use the resources of many. That took a while to accomplish, Staten said in our interview.
The game comes with a 15-hour-plus single-player campaign where you get to play as an agent in the open world of New Providence, a neon-lit city controlled by the mysterious organization Terra Nova. One by one, you take down the crime bosses of the city and solve its mystery. You can play one of 21 different agents, and switch between them at any time you come across supply points in the city.
We also talked about why it took so long to finish the Microsoft exclusive for the Windows PC and Xbox One. More than four years after Microsoft showed off the first gameplay from Crackdown 3, the game debuts on February 15.
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: How long have you been working on this?
Joe Staten: Well, I went to publishing in 2014, right as this game was announced, the early days. I was somewhat involved. Publishing is either a light touch or a heavy one depending on the partner.
