Well visuals never add anything to gameplay and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!  ;-)  We prototyped this game with flat coloured, flat shaded, blocky environment and skeletal characters.  That prototype delivered on what’s core to the playability of the finished product. When that happens, you know you’re making a game for the right reasons!  Quite rightly though, we all want a big slice of spectacle served on the side of our gameplay. We’re confident you’ll agree that Crackdown more than delivers on that too! 

As you’ll no doubt have realized by now, everything in Crackdown is turned up to 11.  We haven’t blown our budgets on a handful of extremely detailed characters or vehicles.  Instead we’ve created a previously unseen world where thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles are visible at any one time in an environment that, from the always-accessible rooftops, can be seen in full.  We wanted Crackdown to stand apart visually rather than follow the flock, so with the OTT action and superhuman abilities we quickly settled on a graphic novel stylization as a perfect fit. 

The graphics technologies required to nail this look have largely been cutting-edge and difficult to achieve.  This has worked against us over the last year or so as we released video footage and screens while the visual style was still in development.  Take a look at the latest media though and you’ll see what our intentions always were; we’re certainly extremely pleased with the results.

Microsoft’s geopolitical department would have a field day with this question!  But yes, though there is a fairly balanced inter-gang status quo across the city before the Agency kicks into action, the gangs do from time to time engage each other in open warfare.  When this happens the player can move in for some easier kills or just sit back and let nature run its course.

The gangs predominantly speak in their native tongue – Los Muertos in Spanish and The Volk in Russian.  I should say that, though the Shai-Gen Corporation is of Asian origin, the board of directors (gang hierarchy) is completely multi racial. Therefore, their corporate language is English.

All skills can be developed by killing. In fact, internally we refer to it as ‘skills for kills’!  Hand to hand combat is one way to develop the strength skill, but any kill resulting from an act of brute strength will develop that attribute (i.e. bowling a dumpster through a bunch of enemies and then using one of the resulting bodies to beat the life out of the others).  In this case the incentive isn’t just to become tougher for the harder missions, it’s to smash up previously indestructible barriers, rip up streetlights, use them as weapons, and hurl trucks across freeways into the path of an oncoming gang vehicle.  Everyone wants to be a super agent!

As for developing the other skills: make kills from altitude and the agility skill is developed to the point where the player can leap Matrix-style from rooftop to rooftop; run down the bad guys (while surgically dodging the innocents) to develop driving skill and use of firearms and explosives should speak for itself.  In testing we’ve found people fooling around with vehicles for hours on end: performing massive jumps, nailing stunts or simply completing races again and again.  The mantra has always been to reward with skill progression any actions that players perform repeatedly AND continue to find fun.  In fact many activities in the game will result in skill bonuses.  The agility skill can also be developed by collecting markers scattered across hundreds of rooftops throughout the city.