Crackdown 3 has been through quite the ordeal ever since the title was announced at E3 2014. Having only just released this year, it played more like a remaster of its trilogy ancestors than something entirely innovative. With issues around live services being properly divided at launch and the release of other AAA titles bookending the same month, players’ interest appears to have waned over time, culminating in what looks like the death of the Crackdown 3 multiplayer mode.
As of late, with shooters like The Division 2 and Apex Legends saturating the market, there appears to not be much space left over for Xbox Games Studios to carve out their own niche with Crackdown 3. As we move into Q2 of 2019, there’s apparently been a drop-off in engagement from the game’s players in terms of multiplayer content.
Reddit user meathelmet posted on the Crackdown community that the Crackdown 3 multiplayer mode, Wrecking Zone, was totally empty as of a few days ago. Other users quickly jumped in and corroborated their story, saying that the mode was “pretty much dead and runs poorly” compared to the rest of the single-player campaign available to players in Crackdown 3. Reddit user nexxusty appeared to attribute the mode’s lack of popularity to a lack of player satisfaction by observing that “people are pissed” and that “the game […] should have been scrapped.”
Judging by the community’s reaction to the game and by the Reddit comments in general, it looks like the Crackdown 3 multiplayer mode died the slow death of the obsolete. The Wrecking Zone appears to have been heavily patronized in the initial days of the game, but the fact that the game launched with multiplayer match-making totally broken would likely have put off a lot of the fanbase who were looking to Crackdown 3 for their co-op fix. Touting your game’s multiplayer mode then shoehorning players into random queues instead of letting them queue up with friends probably wasn’t the smartest move available on Day One.
The future of Crackdown 3 seems like it’s hanging in the balance considering the lack of player engagement with one of the key features trumpeted by Xbox Games Studios, the Crackdown 3 multiplayer mode. It remains to be seen whether there’s going to be an attempt from the team to pull together new content or to patch out any other gripes that may be stopping the fanbase from fully committing again to the title. Judging from the radio silence around the game, however, the odds aren’t looking great.
More: Terry Crews Interview: The New Face of Crackdown 3
Source: Crackdown Reddit community
