Delayed again into 2019

@superfriend: I don't know what you're talking about, I heard people are having tons of fun with fable legends, scalebound and the new phantom dust game.

@vortextk: I wholly reject the idea of the "play anywhere" games as a mark against the Xbox. It's a somewhat bullshit tactic people use to try and ignore good first-party Xbox games on the technicality of them not being "full exclusives" because some of them can also be played on PC. (Except these same people seem to just whine about the Microsoft store instead of actually buying the games there.)

I suppose if you have a PC, assume (inaccurately) that every MS first-party game that happened before play anywhere wasn't worth anything, and have zero interest in gaming on a TV (either additionally or alternatively), an Xbox would have limited appeal. However, there are people like myself who have zero interest in gaming at a desk on a monitor. Play anywhere ensures both of those groups of people have access to their games, which is a good thing. Yet it's instead used as a super-shitty "no exclusives" punchline against the Xbox platform itself, despite that the Xbox is likely the only reason most of the first-party MS games exist at all.

The idea that the Xbox's game offerings should be discredited for offering cross-buy/play/save while Sony's should apparently be celebrated for being restrictive/insular is fucking backwards. Realistically, both consoles at this point have about a dozen quality first-party games, but via people dismissing any and all Xbox play anywhere games and/or recency bias from Sony taking their sweet-ass time this gen with their first-party content until finally delivering there last year, the present "exclusives" narrative is pretty goddamn off-base, IMO.

@thepanzini: Maybe the Forza games get their due in small circles overseas, but boy, people seem to not give a flying fuck about them around these parts. Most seem to have this shitty "oh, another Forza game" attitude or just claim to not like racing games in general as if that somehow means the Forza games can't actually be good. I'd love to see people get appropriately hyped over Forza Horizon 4 (which, based on the series' current trend, could very well be the new best racing game ever made), but it's not going to happen.

Maybe Fable could move the needle. I honestly don't fucking know what MS can do to impress people these days, because people seem WAAAAAYYY more interested in schadenfreude when a Crackdown gets delayed than in acknowledging any of the positive things MS has done, such as pushing the console performance standard a whole lot further (and in the process, making 4K displays more viable), committing to backwards compatibility and ultimately demonstrating its appeal, providing a terrific entertainment hub and still one of the cheapest 4K blu-ray options out there, delivering multiple great racing games while the competition there has floundered significantly, helping create a shooter in Titanfall that is still arguably the best and most original FPS in recent years, etc.

I'm just wondering if people will ever stop being petty about Kinect. Yeah, it didn't pan out, but I give them a little credit for trying to push the envelope there. In retrospect, they shouldn't have tried to force-include it or ask the "extra" $100 for it, but the asking price wasn't, say, $600 at launch, either. As for the other "wrongs" people are somehow still refusing to forgive, MS was arguably ahead of their time on a few of them. Everyone flipped their shit about the "always online" idea, and yet here we are now with a bunch of games that are always online anyway. Moreover, the "no used games" thing was fundamentally misunderstood/intentionally misrepresented from the start as everyone was too busy piling on to notice/acknowledge the game-sharing component of it that could have been awesome, and guess what, digital games turned out to be people's preference anyway.

I just feel for MS. They can't seem to win in the eyes of many no matter what they do. When the Xbox had a great first-party lineup early on this gen with Forza Horizon 2, Titanfall, Sunset Overdrive, et al., gamers made "underpowered" complaints and acted like nominal differences in a few Ps on a few scattered third-party games that you'd have to squint at a zoomed-in still image from a giant high-end TV to even notice were some huge deal. So MS then makes a powerhouse console with the One X, at which point gamers have proceeded to whine about the first-party lineup and have actively tried to pretend it's far worse than it is because dastardly MS had the audacity to give gamers the ability to also play some of their first-party games on PC, which is apparently a truly repulsive idea.

From MS' perspective, the messages gamers have delivered this gen are that they want games tethered to platforms and hate flexibility, that they're going to complain about the console when the games are good, that they're going to complain about games when the console is good, and that MS being incredibly responsive to customers in unprecedented ways to try and give gamers exactly what they ask for doesn't actually translate to sales or engendering/restoring goodwill. So, pardon me, everyone, for interrupting the general mock-fest to point out the shitty attitudes and pitfalls therein. Everyone resume the negative internet-ing. Maybe it will produce the "dream" of MS exiting the console space, which would surely be an amazingly positive development for the industry.

MS can impress gamers by putting out a game.

And for the record, play anywhere isn’t a knock against Microsoft. It’s a knock against the Xbox, a pretty worthless piece of machinery without software as is all hardware.

Looks like it was just a few months, I wonder if it was partially a timing decision. Which may not be a great sign of confidence from MS. Still holding out hope that the game will be good but this doesn’t look good after everything leading up to the game.

it's weird seeing so many people bummed out by this news considering the lukewarm, at best, reception to this game at E3 last year and the fact Sea of Thieves left so many wanting more. I would think Microsoft giving this game more time and money would be encouraging. I get that people want games, but at least there's theoretically a higher chance of this game being much better now?

@babychoochoo: For me it's less of "bummed out" and more of a "but you already announced it forever ago with multiple delays while still no one seeing it having much of a good thing to say about it..". No doubt better and delayed is better than rushed and bad, but are we even going to get to "better"? I dunno.

@notnert427: Yeah I understand where your coming from, rightly or wrongly MS will go through the entire generation getting flack for its very poor first impression. However this isn't new or unique to MS, no matter how many great games Nintendo released for the Wii U most people never gave it a chance, and the PS3 got a reputation all last as being overpriced despite this being nowhere near true Source. MS are not helping with their poor project management, Crackdown 3 will definitely be better for the delay and I think it might turn out pretty great.

The lack of game play at the press conference makes me think this is even more of a garbage fire than I already did.

Yep and the fact they still haven't shown anything remotely close to what the original pitch of that game was. If this miss the February release date I have little faith that this game will actually come out.

I thought it looked really fun. I wasn't even expecting to see it given the delay. I don't see what there was to be possibly down about besides the game taking a while. I think the destruction question is about all but personally I am not expecting any myself.

There is a reason basically no games even attempt it. It's hard to pull off and really effects gameplay. You can't go building a really dense city with very tall buildings and pull it off technically (even games that have had a lot of destruction almost all used buildings no bigger than about 3 stories). You can't rely on the signature platforming of the first game really at all if you go that route, which is for me the biggest thing people ignore and when they whine about the destruction I want to know what their answer is there.

Personally I never wanted it at all. Just give me cooler weapons and abilities and give me a more complicated and dynamic system as far as how the Gangs were set up in the first game, where you could take them out strategically and with freedom.

I don't get this tone really. I think clearly they tried to make a crazy version of this game with destruction and the game straight up didn't work because no one has ever pulled that kind of thing off with cloud computing that I know of, and then they had to remake the game. They messed up and they are basically making a different game (this is ignoring that, as I detailed in my other post, destruction would absolutely break Crackdown's signature gameplay element in it's platforming). I don't get the negative tone from people about that and good on Microsoft for fixing it. You can't put out a game that doesn't work.

Since day zero the destruction has been only in MP with Cloudgine responsible for that, and the single player is being made by Sumo Digital it has always been planned as separate thing. The destruction in MP uses 4 virtual servers and 1 for hosting the game which is limited to a small portion of the map, having the same destruction in single player is unrealistic. I also don't see how it could break the level design not only are the very big buildings tough to take down you could always have a rebuild gameplay mechanic in someway, a simple skip time option where the city is rebuilt would do.

No other games are doing this stuff at all. It is actually very hard to do and again what about the best part of Crackdown. How do you get orbs on buildings you blow up?

I remember the multiplayer talk but I think they haven't brought it up in forever now for a reason. No one wanted multiplayer like that and it doesn't actually work with the design anyways. It's a way of doing things, having physics all offloaded and having that destruction, no games have done so lets not talk about how easy it is or we can easily rewind time or add an entire building mechanic to this dumb fun shooter game.

I do not care much. I loved Crackdown because of the super power scaling walls, leaping across buildings, exploring and taking out bad guys with what you were working with. Story was shallow, but it came up with 'kills for skills, agent' and demanded a revenge sequel.

It was an itch further scratched by the Infamous franchise.

I looked at the trailer and despaired of doing anything but TOTAL DISTRUCTION.

So atm, I do not care. I know M.S. is having it's problems, and I don't wish them any evil. I've noticed they have had problems with games they are hanging their hat on, maybe just 'about' give that part of it up if they can get about everything else and on decent footing claim games run better on especially their newest variant of console. No Horizon; Zero Dawn, but it might draw them close anyways.

1. Microsoft has a weak gaming division, in my opinion. Forza Horizons is a great franchise and really the only active MS first party series I enjoy.

2. Halo and Gears don't mean what they did at any point 6 years ago or older.

3. Crackdown 3 probably gets delayed into the summer, right?

4. Microsoft does the same thing with their gaming division that they do in everything else: they close offices, have no worthy products, buy third party companies, and then tout how strong "their" games are. Them buying Ninja Theory legitimately annoys me.

I came out of the Microsoft happy for third party games I'll play on both PC and Ps4 opposed to seeing things making me excited to actually boot up my Xbox One.

@stephen_von_cloud: I never said the cloud stuff was easy and I was agreeing with you in that regard, but gameplay wise "How do you get orbs on building you blow up?" would be an easy problem to solve;

1. The simplest way the anything you destroyed get rebuilt after the passing of time, a skip time or sleep function would easily work.

2. It could be also worked into gameplay the player could have a repair tool like in Battlefield where small parts or even entire buildings could be rebuilt. Or another way would be any building could be rebuilt at cost via in game currency which again could be easily weaved into gameplay as a new means of taking over an area from a gang the player could have the option destroy it then pay to have it rebuilt.

3. It could always do the lazy trick that nearly every game does when the players leaves the area everything spawns back untouched.

In a game where you can jump as high as skyscrapers or have a rocket launcher that fires cluster bomb ducks, you can easy do myriad of things to rebuild what the player wrecks.

@thepanzini: bogging down a fun action game with any of that stuff sounds terrible, along with it ruining the platforming fun of the game. The two most fun parts of Crackdown 1 are getting orbs and jumping off buildings and shooting missles at guys you are locked onto.

Feels like we've seen alarmingly little of this game that comes out in February...

@momikono: Agreed about Microsoft making great moves but just dropping the ball when it comes to first party.

Gamepass is great. Backwards compatibility has been amazing. The Xbox One X is a great piece of tech. The OS needs a serious UX overhall, though.

I liked Sea of Thieves and State of Decay enough, but I’ve spent Thanksgiving through the New Year playing Spider-man, Detroit, and God of War. Plus, they got Hellblade, Nier, and Yakuza first (if Yakuza ever hits Xbox).

I’d love to see Microsoft just go wild on the first party front...

Was hoping for an unfinished.... Hopefully we get a QL before or around launch. Very curious.

It's almost here!

All the coverage makes it look spectacularly underwhelming. Thankfully I have GamePass so it's not a biggie. I'll gladly romp around and collect some orbs (there are 1,000 of them now!) until Sekiro and DMC5 in March. I don't want to write it off before I've even seen a proper QL but man all the preview footage I've seen so far makes it look antiquated as all heck, like it honestly doesn't look all THAT much better than the original game. Sharper, of course, but quite bland.