September 7, 2007
Crackdown's quality was so doubtful during its production cycle, some of the development team dubbed it 'Crackbrown'. At the Industry All Stars event held earlier this week, RealTime Worlds producer Phil Wilson explained how the game was initially announced too soon (early 2005, in fact) and that early confidence in the game was very low, even amongst its creators.
Such adversity certainly helped the team strive for a better game and, according to Wilson, they did enjoy themselves eventually. But with public opinion still threatening to scupper it, the Halo 3 Beta key in the box was no coincidence. Ironic, then, that Crackdown's 1.5 million sales probably helped the Halo franchise as much as the beta access sold the sandbox shooter.
Despite its success, Crackdown is not getting a sequel any time soon. Wilson said: "Microsoft were a little late in stepping up to the plate to ask for Crackdown 2, and by then we had already started working on bigger, better things."
The team's next game will be an online MMO game called APB (All Points Bulletin) which will launch next year, based on a cops and robbers concept. There's also one as yet undisclosed title in the works, which will be released in 2009. Of course, we do to wonder what the team are calling those behind closed doors. We wouldn't bet against 'Cops and Nobbers'.
Above: First Lair's a 'good stab'and now 'Crackbrown'? Does anyone actuallylike their own games?
