Crackdown 2: Get Ready for a Beat Down
A new breed of superhero has come to Pacific City. And the infected citizens are going to kick his ass.
July 2, 2009 - Crackdown 2 made a smashing debut at Microsoft's E3 press conference last month. With the game set for launch sometime in 2010, actual details on the sequel remain sparse. And while developer Ruffian Games wants to keep it that way for a while, we managed to steal some time with Crackdown 2 Producer James Cope to discuss the debut trailer.
Since its announcement, Ruffian has come under some fire from Realtime Worlds head David Jones. Realtime Worlds developed the first game, but doesn't have a hand in the sequel, a fact which rubbed Jones the wrong way. "Things with business development didn't really align for Microsoft and Realtime Worlds at the end of the first game," Cope explained. "The opportunity came up for Ruffian to do the work… Things didn't line up [for Realtime Worlds] and we were lucky that it did for us. We don't wish any animosity towards anyone."
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Many of our readers have expressed concern in the change of developers. However, it should be noted that a large portion of the Crackdown 2 team worked on the original. "There's a lot of people from both Microsoft and other companies that contributed to the first game and now we've all just really come together to carry on," Cope said. "We've got a really good team and I'm really happy with the way we're going at the moment. We've got some really, really talented people. I don't [want to] put a specific number on it, but yeah [...] at least half the team is experienced on the first game."
Crackdown 2 takes place some measure of time after the original. Once again it takes place in Pacific City, though that too has changed quite a bit between the first and second game. We're going to find out a lot more about The Agency in Crackdown 2. Not much more can be offered on the plot -- not even the basic setup -- because Cope believes that would spoil an important part of the game. Basically, something drastic has happened in the city in between the two games that has created a new status quo. Cope assured us "we have a vision of where Crackdown is headed and we're working strongly towards meeting that vision."
What Cope could discuss in some depth is the city itself. The E3 trailer begins with what appears to be the view of a nervous system, but transitions into Pacific City highways. Cope acknowledged there is significance to the representation of the city as a living thing. "We've always said that Pacific City is one of our key characters in Crackdown. People don't really identify with the Agency. It's a bit of a faceless player. We bring other characterizations into the game and Pacific City was one of them. We think of the city as a living organism. The highways and the veins of the trailer are a nice interconnection artistically and with reason." He took that analogy a little further, connecting it to the infection mentioned in the trailer. "We like [to think] of the city as being infected, but we're not sure where the source is coming from. Certainly the city being a living organism and it being a stage for infection is something that's very key to where we're going with this."
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/100/1000902/crackdown-2-20090702012601825-000.jpg)
We can confirm big explosions in Crackdown 2.
Though time has passed and Pacific City has changed, it won't be completely foreign to players. The Agency Tower remains as does the memorable voice of the Agency Director. "As we said, we really wanted to retain this feeling that Pacific City is something that players will feel a connection to," Cope told us. "We want to have that sense of revisiting old areas, the sense of déjà vu in a way, but it's going to be a completely new place. To the player's point of view, it's a completely new environment, but it will have elements that they will recognize and [...] that will be the case in terms of its scale and its presence... it is a familiar place, but very much changed."
So if the game isn't expanding outwards much, how exactly is it growing? One possibility is opening up areas beneath the city. The trailer suggests a creature comes from the sewers. When asked if that meant we'd be exploring the subterranean areas of Pacific City, Cope coyly answered: "Crackdown really brought vertical gameplay to the forefront of a lot of people's mind and I think as well as going up we should look at height in other directions."
Even though Ruffian is "doing a lot of work on rendering and lighting to push the bar up" on the visuals, Crackdown 2 is "retaining the vibrancy and comic stylings of the original." But more importantly, their new tech is "increasing the capabilities of the systems that [allow] us to have thousands of characters and activities in the world, it will play a significant part in gameplay and be integral to the online experience."
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/100/1000902/crackdown-2-20090702012614340-000.jpg)
Will these new specs be yours at the start of the game?
As the trailer indicates, you once again play an agent. However, this time three of your friends can join you online as you hunt down the bad guys. Four-player co-op is "a really exciting thing for us," Cope said, adding that "it's developing really well." And, of course, with an additional two players you're going to need some deeper customization options to distinguish one another. "There are particular reasons why they've developed [the new look.] Like on the Agency armor you can see the cell motif, the hexagon motif [from the beginning of the trailer] come back again. That links the bloodcells with the veins [of the city]. That's the thing that we're trying to carry through."
But will these new agents start at ground zero, as in the original game, or enter Crackdown 2 with a healthy dose of building-leaping abilities? Well, if you were hoping for the latter, you're going to be a bit disappointed. While you may not be as underpowered as you were at the start of the first Crackdown, you're definitely not going to be leaping tall buildings in a single bound right off the bat. It all goes back to Ruffian's design theories, which Cope explained. "Stepping back into our theory for the vision of the game, it builds upon [...] what we set out to do – [create] player empowerment. Without that progression and without that reset of player abilities, you just don't get that progression feeling and it's kind of diluted and not important to the player. For the people to really feel they've got special powers, they need to be in a position where they know what it feels like not to have special powers... We want to maintain that sense of player empowerment and ultimately that point where they get through that tough situation where they feel like the ultimate superhero."
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/100/1000902/crackdown-2-20090702012611184-000.jpg)
Gravity is your bitch.
The reasons for starting you at level 1 again is so you can build up to something even better. "I think it would be rude not to [add new powers]," Cope said. "We want to maintain a lot of familiarity with the first game, but we also want to evolve it. I do still think that the Crackdown 1 DLC was a huge evolution over the launch game. We're very keen here to continue in the path that [the DLC] had set. It's really about expanding on the gameplay and the arsenal of things available to a player. That's something we all believe in strongly."
Just don't expect those powers to include invulnerability. In the trailer, the Agent leaps from the top of the Agency Tower to the ground unphased. We asked if that meant you could do the same in the game. Though an interesting idea, Cope felt that would take away an important part of what made the original so much fun. "When you take away risk and danger, [players] no longer have that explosive feeling of being empowered to do amazing things. If you remove risks, you're in this situation where nothing can hurt you. And to be honest, from a game's point of view, that's not a very exciting thing. We always want to retain the fact that there is an element of risk to everything you do."
So you don't start Crackdown 2 with epic jumping abilities or super speed, but you can compensate with some new weaponry. The trailer clearly shows a brand new gun. It's the Agency MA4C. It's "reminiscent of a Colt M4," according to Cope. "It is a 5.56mm caliber assault rifle with medium range that you can acquire early in the game. If you notice in the trailer, even though it's a two handed weapon, the agent uses it single-handed taking the enemy out with a single shot. Why he chooses to only take one shot, we'll leave to you to ponder."
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/100/1000902/crackdown-2-20090702012623995-000.jpg)
It's not going to end well for this guy.
New powers and weapons are great, but those weren't the lacking elements of the original. The mission structure was little more than stumbling across bosses, killing them and moving on. "We completely understand some of their frustrations with the gameplay, like the repetitive mission structure and things like that," Cope said. "It's something we feel as gamers as well as game developers is frustrating as well. City exploration and enjoying the freedom of Crackdown is a very important part of the experience. Naturally, we want to encourage players to explore the city and find new and interesting things to do in it. That said, fans can expect a progression to their objectives from Crackdown to Crackdown 2 that extend beyond just find the boss, kill the boss."
Even if Ruffian can't improve the missions, at least we can rest assured that the Agility and Hidden orbs are returning. How these have "evolved" is unknown, but Cope assures us that finding them won't prove as frustrating as in the original. "One of the things that annoyed people the most that we never clued them in on were orb locations. We've driven a lot of people mad, myself included." One helpful tool might be the binoculars spied in the trailer. "We always had the idea of telescopic vision... Where we go exactly with that we will retain for a little while long. I think players are going to have a lot of fun. And we believe strongly that we don't add frivolous things in a game. We make sure things have a purpose and a value."
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/100/1000902/crackdown-2-20090702012617542-000.jpg)
A new breed of agent.
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