Crackdown 3 Appears To Be Another Game That Has Its Visuals Downgraded

Crackdown 3 is an upcoming open world third-person shooter from Microsoft. It was one of the first games to be announced for the console but the first revealed gameplay for Crackdown 3 now shows a clear downgrade compared to the current version.

[chrisx]

ya think? its obviously been downgraded since it's announcement with the power of the clouds slogan. that's where "crackdowngrade" came from.

[abstractel]

It's been in development for ages, it obviously has had problems during development which could be from a multitude of reasons. But there's no denying this game is downright ugly. It's hard for me to even imagine how this game could come out in this day and age. There's no developer I've worked with, or talked with, that would accept this. Don't mean to be mean, I just don't get it. It's not even the technical side, the textures, lighting and modeling is so poor. Don't know what artists would even produce assets like these.

I wanted this to be good.

[Potnoodle999]

@shaggy
Just wow.... do you really have such low expectations of a game that has been in development so long? Maybe it’s because of gamepass... as regardless of whether it’s good, everyone has it anyway. Sounds like a shit gaming environment to me, I’ll gladly pay £50 for my games if the quality is there. Currently playing resi remake (not £50 but close) and it is insanely good, next up KH 3. Can’t imagine there is anyone who would actually be anticipating C3 enough they would actually pay £50 for it, but they won’t have to will they! 😂

[The Wood]

The Power of the Cloud. . . . . .

[WilliamSheridan]

@potnoodle

Why would hoping a game is fun be considered low expectations? Let's see if the game is good, then you can talk trash AFTER you play it.

[ZeroX9876]

Cell shaded games can be improved, proof is all the games that Cyber Connect 2 made during the last 10-15 years. They were able to bring the "Anime" style to their cell shaded games and it looks amazing, so Crackdown 3 has no excuse on this side, they could've done better.

[darthv72]

so what are we comparing it to? If you say pre-alpha then sure it looks like a downgrade. Who really thinks pre-alpha stuff is going to be the end all be all finished product? Sometimes the finished product looks better and sometimes it doesn't. It all depends on what kind of performance hit is involved with everything else you dont see.

Personally I like comparing games to previous releases in a series or those in a similar genre. In this case the game looks much better than the first two and if the destruction is as fun to make happen as it looks then to me it's going to be a blast. I love this kind of fun environmental mayhem.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Yeah its a shame. The games been past down twice. Which is the visuals have changed for the worse. They been focusing too much on the cloud tech. I feel this game was a catch 22. The cloud is real but everything else gets overshadowed. Or work on everything else but dump the cloud tech. Either way this game was backed into a corner.

[Tech5]

they don't talk about the characters getting face lifts though.

[GTgamer]

I can't believe people tried to destroy spiderman for a goddamn puddle but are cool with this smfh.

[GTgamer]

@49miner sureeeeee it's not the same people Smfh and your Account was created 25 days tbh your probably one of them :)

[Gamingsince1981]

Some people seem to think it was downgraded to help performance .......but wasn't that the whole point in using "cloud power" , to increase performance without the console doing most of the work ?

[gameslayer2411]

How has no one pointed out the lack of a shadow on the MC?

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Cloud stuff wasn’t there to improve graphic it was for mass environmental destruction.You sound ignorant and seem to be motivated to be inflammatory.

You need to cool it now like New Edition.

[Kribwalker]

From pre-alpha footage to the latest footage there’s definitely a downgrade. From what we saw in 2017 to now is upgraded, but the early stuff is definitely not the same now. I’ll give it a go still, but definitely disappointed comparing the footage between them both. The final story footage doesn’t look like a 360 game like some folks try to say, but it’s not as good as their target renders

[Jin_Sakai]

This will be another mediocre Xbox exclusive to add to the list.

This is what you call a massive downgrade.

https://www.resetera.com/th...

[MasterCornholio]

That's way worse than a few missing puddles in my opinion.

[The_Sage]

Wow. Doesn't even look like the same game.

[trooper_]

This game looks so bad, looool.

[Gamist2dot0]

Damn, the final release looks like a demo you would pitch before the game gets the green light for production.

[DaDrunkenJester]

Those CD3 gifs are very interesting.. I'm pretty sure I have seen recent footage that has character shadows and such.

[DaDrunkenJester]

To add to my previous comment:

Edit: This footage from December 20th in IGN clearly shows character shadows:

https://www.ign.com/videos/...

And so does the footage here from IGN from just 4 days ago...

https://youtu.be/jRcmsxa8Bl...

I think there is something seriously fishy with the footage in those gifs...

[Potnoodle999]

Wow haha

Can’t believe they made another bust 😂

[Araragifeels]

Sumo digital studio are horrible game dev. There is a reason why LBP3 was not a great game, Dead Island 2 is on hietus and new Sonic Racing was delay. Xbox should have gave the game to a better studio.

[OffRoadKing]

G.E.F.G.P. Good enough for game pass.

[Lore]

From what I saw whenever the player drives a car it looks as if it’s sliding on wet pavement. For a game that took this long to develop it doesn’t look like the physics are that of a 2019 title.

[SpaceRanger]

In all honesty, I always felt like it was more of an art style change not a downgrade. It definitely has more of an arcade like game feel to it, and I think we’re all aware that many developers change artstyling to achieve better performance.

This is one of those games I’d say. An example of a downgrade is something like the first Divison where there was no art style change. Just simply a downgrade of the game overall in features and other visual components.

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

No mate - this is night and day, they also went with one of the least taxing art styles possible.

It's just not good, no matter how you slice it.

5+ years in development remember. Don't forget SoT, SOD2 and now this - might be time for ms to throw in the towel.

[AmUnRa]

"it was more of an art style change not a downgrade.."

O boy, i dont know what to say.. O wait i got it, its not a "art style change"., it is a 100% downgrade, do not care your spinning the reality.

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

Shaggy2303 - but it doesn't look fun either, even people that have played are underwhelmed. I'd be jumping off the xbox ship and just let it sink.

[frostypants]

You clearly haven't compared the early demos of the multiplayer to the new. It looks like a shadow of itself. It used to be that the graphics were bleh but the destruction seemed cool. Now the destruction looks way downgraded and the graphics went from bleh to barf.

[mark_parch]

not sure what's going on with the shadows. I've seen some footage where the characters don't have shadows and other with shadows. maybe it's pc footage with the shadows turned off.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...
This footage has shadows

[DaDrunkenJester]

The no shadows thing was a glitch. The game clearly has character and item shadows. It takes 2 seconds to look up other outlets gameplay footage to see this was just a glitch and it's sad that people are running with this.

[NarutoFox]

Not looking good for the green team

[rainslacker]

So it's an upgrade of the original worse downgrade

[gameslayer2411]

My Biggest issue is the lack of a shadow on the main character, that bothers me more than any style change or downgrade.

[Morgue]

If N4G was still based on the bubble system you would've lost them all by now saying nonsense like this.

[Kribwalker]

what nonsense?
https://youtu.be/0bxhmoNXnb...

the new footage looks better than the first real gameplay footage we saw here. It doesn’t look as good as the original Target renders at all (pre alpha footage that originally was shown) but it looks better than this link i gave you does it not?

[ArchangelMike]

It's not just a downgrade, it's a testament to MS's inability to harness their own tech to achieve their stated aims and goals with the Cloud this gen. It was an ambitious pipe dream, and props to them for trying. It is likely that the cost of adding cloud servers became prohibitive as the in-game destruction progresses across the millions of games being hosted at the same time. They said they had to spin up 14 additional servers within minutes of just one match starting, just to keep up with the destruction; not to mention the tens of thousands of matches, everyday, month after month when the game launches. No wonder they had to downsize the vision of the project. Anyway next-gen is right around the corner, I hope we'll see that original vision for Crackdown 3 come to reality some day soon.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

@0:38 - The vision for the ultimate sandbox
@1:36 - 100% destructible environments
@1:42 - Connecting to MS Cloud played with 20x the computational power of Xbox One (not just 12x)

#livingthedream
#thepipedream

[Daz]

Yeah this is true. It's not a downgrade. Just to ambitious tech demo. If no one see that video I think we would have a different reaction today
Or released earlier.

[JesusBuiltmyHotrod]

It's still a downgrade..stop trying to sell something that ultimately won;t look or be like what you show at all. Companies need to get more flak for this.

[Thundercat77]

Wow what a spin. So this is how we are going to call this now?

For even less than this, people were ready to call downgrade on Spiderman.

[SmielmaN]

This game has been the flag bearer for Xbone since t was announced. We have heard for years that this game was going to show the true power of MS Cloud tech.

This game is supposed to be incredible. I will reserve judgement until it’s released but I can say I’m very interested in seeing what MS can do with all this time and it’s Cloud tech.

They’ve sold millions of Xbones on this Cloud premise and the day will come when they show all those consumers that their trust was well worth the wait..... maybe.

[sinspirit]

https://n4g.com/news/148651...

Me 5 years ago - " if it only took about 15 to render this. 300,000(total numbers of servers) divided by 15 is 20,000. You really think an actual game will use this technology if only around 20,000 upon millions of users could take advantage of it? And lets not forget that thousands and thousands of servers are dedicated to PC use, businesses, Microsofts own business and products, video game servers, their marketplace, etcetera, then there is even less servers to use for this in the actual world."

I was very close to that 14 number lol. I basically gave an example of how 15 servers per match/game would be too much to meet the demand of millions of potential buyers of the game. Since the servers were low and mid-tier clusters from 2012, they are seriously not designed for heavy workloads like a video game. And, as you said. Not only does the destruction keep ramping up and up to require more and more, but it needs to be quick and snappy to accommodate it. They've added more servers and 14 servers per match is still too much lol..

In the same demonstration I commented about. They compared a high end gaming PC which should have been able to handle something like that. But, they clearly hadn't optimized physics to run on a GPU which held it back.. Which is misleading when they're trying to compare what a local machine can do when they gave their servers two handicaps. 1. Having it pre-staged. 2. Gimping the total capability of a local machine which does have the hardware designed for those workloads but they chose not to take advantage of it to compare one CPU to dozens upon dozens of their servers cpu's which they have not disclosed.

[ArchangelMike]

At this point I think there are really only two conclusions that can be reached, either Microsoft is just playing a smoke and mirrors game to sell units, or else they actually underestimated their capacity and capability, or are just not that good at harnessing the tech for gameplay purposes.

Cloud tech is brilliant for crunching raw data, like for research, or stock markets, weather patterns, even A.I. computations etc. But when it comes to gaming - especially multiplayer games then I don't know. I believe the results would be very different if they had only implemented the cloud destruction in the single player game - without the need for the extra multiplayer load. They would have had so much more bandwidth to play with.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Too good to be true nuff said

[NXFather]

Uh Oh, There goes gravity. Snapback to reality. Plowwp, its over now.

[TK-55]

It's a common thing this gen. Learnt early on to expect downgrades from the trailers even for the PC release. Dev's are just too afraid to push visuals like Crysis and Metro 2033 did.

[BehindTheRows]

It has absolutely nothing to do with 'fear' and each case is different. For starters, involving consoles means they have to dial back on many things (notice very few in-house games from each console manufacturer saw any "downgrades"). Crysis and Metro were pushed as hard as they were because they were very few sacrifices that needed to be made.

For Crackdown, the biggest issue was that it promised too much (and too early).

[TK-55]

"Crysis and Metro were pushed as hard as they were because they were very few sacrifices that needed to be made."

Such as?

[BehindTheRows]

@TK-55: Why hold back the visuals for the sake of the console version? Simple. Money. They make more money on the lower-end console versions. Why push the PC as hard as possible with those things in mind? The return won't be the same. I get the sentiment you're after, I'd also prefer harder pushed effects/visuals etc..., but that's just not reality anymore.

So, you ultimately answered your own question when you mentioned Crysis and Metro 2033 (though 2033 released on Xbox, it was a port).

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

HZD, GOW, U4, U:TLL, Spider-Man and soon to be GoT, TLOU2 all look amazing. Pushing visuals to their limit on closed hardware. Just call a spade a spade and call ms out on their inferior (sometimes abysmal) game creation skills.

No wonder their all about services the last 2 years.

Doesn't something smell off at xbox?

[JesusBuiltmyHotrod]

It always has? They have never been about the art of games at all...and it shows.

[TK-55]

Are those games on PC? Not exactly able to push that far visually if they're not and that's not me saying they look bad but that they could go much further if they were on PC. Looks to me like you just wanted to turn this into a fanboy war.

Take a look at The Witcher 3 trailers and then look at the final product. We see what the PC can do so why remove those optional settings? Why make it so your games aren't able to push future hardware to their limit like Crysis and Metro 2033?

[Picture_Dancer]

Yeah, but crackdown looked avarage, there was nothing to downgrade, but still they did it. Game from looking like pastgen now is looking like ugly pasgen title

[BehindTheRows]

I explained them. Neither game was held back by console hardware. Every game has sacrifices, of course, but PC exclusives have less.

[TK-55]

Didn't make myself clear. What are the sacrifices that need to be made today when the industry is bigger than ever? Watch Dogs was Ubisofts biggest new IP, The Witcher 3 was CDPR's best selling game so why hold back visual settings for the sake of the console version?

If anything it was even riskier back then because the PC market certainly wasn't as big and sales expectations for the two examples I gave you were far lower and yet they pushed further.

[DillyDilly]

How many games are not downgraded when they are launched is the question. This seems like a normal practice for most games

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

To this extent? Come on mate your having a laugh for sure.

[DillyDilly]

Downgrading Is Downgrading

[Kribwalker]

Its like Killzone 2. they showed a target render before work really was going on on the game, and then the final product is different once they get everything in place. It’s definitely downgraded from their Target render, especially the wrecking zone, but the original footage was no different then a target render like KZ2

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

Killzone 2 released and looked bloody amazing, the environmental effects were insane. So while there was a downgrade (I'm not sure that video was ever supposed to see the light of day) the game still released and looked impressive.

Now in 2019 with 5+ years under its belt, cloud tech, harnessing the power of 20 xbox ones - we have this abomination.

Spin it anyway you like fellas, sometimes you just gotta man up and cop it on the chin.

[Atticus_finch]

We usually see minor graphics changes but I can't remember a game that had footage running in-game of everything only to have all that downgraded 4 years later. Cd3 is especial in that way.

[AmUnRa]

Yeah just like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spiderman and in April Days Gone, all the games where downgraded....o, wait.😉

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

I don't get what you are trying to say, I really don't. All those games you mentioned are top tier when it comes to graphics AND gameplay (Still waiting on Days Gone).

The lights really are on and nobodies home with ms fans.

[Gamingsince1981]

@old boy

That's what AmUnRa is saying, those games didn't get downgraded , even though sites tried saying as much but we're proven wrong at release.

[Araragifeels]

This isn't your average everyday downgrade... This is, advanced downgrade!

[ArchangelMike]

I think the Crackdown 3 downgrade got an upgrade! o.0

[ArchangelMike]

Let's just call a spade a spade. Go and look at the gameplay reveals of TLOU, The Order, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvels Spiderman, God of War etc. Then go and look at the actual released gameplay footage. You would be hard pressed to find significant differences in visual fidelity. Sony learned their lesson after the Killzone 2 fiasco. But still Killzone 2 was a technical masterpiece and the highwatermark of the series.

Say what you will about Sony, you can't deny that they excel in the quality of their exclusives, and have set the industry standard in so many ways.

Another test case will soon be Days Gone, but the truth is that Sony show gameplay trailers that are practically the same or better in the final released game.

[Imalwaysright]

Uncharted 4 had a definite downgrade and some of the other games you mentioned were better in some areas and worse in others. Spider man is one of the few games that overall looked better in the final version compared to the demos that were shown previously.

[rainslacker]

@iam

Uc4 downgraded some things, and upgraded others. The things they downgraded were mostly background objects and some of the draw distance, while they upped the quality of character models, and overall lighting.

There's a difference between slight variances as some things take priority, and things like see see here.

But, I won't say.ms.downgraded this game, rather that it never looked that good to begin with. But they certainly didn't deliver on the expectations they set for cloud destruction.

For The most part, if say that Sony's downgrades accusations are usually focused in on singular things, but overall picture qualityn tends to look better on release.

[Imalwaysright]

slacker

Nope. Uncharted 4 was a definite downgrade compared to the E3 reveal and I know that the excuse was that it was a cutscene but ND said that they weren't going to use pre-rendered cutscenes like they did in their PS3 games and that the demo shown was an in-engine cutscene running in real time https://gearnuke.com/pre-re... on a PS4 meaning that it was using the same assets from the build they were working on at the time. In fact ND goal was to make the game look better in the final version https://www.dualshockers.co... but the game we got to play definetely doesn't look like https://www.naughtydog.com/...

[IRetrouk]

That was the announce trailer lol, that whole scene would have been built like the quantic dreams scenes were, ie a lot more resources to use because its not gameplay code, once they started showing real gameplay it only got better, find me a gameplay vid that looks worse than the first one they showed, won't be able to though.

[Imalwaysright]

IRetrouk

Yes it was a trailer An in-engine trailer running in real time on a PS4.

"lot more resources to use because its not gameplay code" That would be a pre-rendered cutscene like the ones ND made in the PS3 days. If you play TloU on a PS3 you will notice that the lighting, textures, character detail... are better in the cutscenes than in the gameplay portions. That's because ND used a farm of a few networked PS3 to achieve those results. They weren't running in real time, weren't using the assets of the gameplay portions and were not a demonstration of what a PS3 + their engine was capable of.

I don't know if you played MGS4 but if you did, you would notice that the camo Snake had when you were playing would be the same exact camo you would see in a cutscene. That's because MGS4 cutscenes, just like that Uncharted 4 trailer, aren't pre-rendered. MGS4 cutscenes, just like that trailer, are in-engine cutscenes running in real time and are using the same exact assets as the gameplay.

What you see in that trailer would be the same exact thing you would see in the "gameplay code" of the bulid that was used to make it. Uncharted 4 was downgraded.

[IRetrouk]

Mate you are so wrong it's not even funny, of course it was running on a PS4, they said as much, it's still just one scene exactly like Quantic dreams hype trailers, it's deffo not gameplay code at all, in engine, realtime etc, still just a scene that gets to use a lot more resources than gameplay code, that's just a fact, like I said find me a video that looks worse than the first gameplay video...Its ok, I'll wait.

[rainslacker]

When less than 6 months ago, puddles became important, and now, drastic justifications to explain why this isn't a downgrade, are why the discussion is happening.

It's not uncommon for games to change throughout development, but when one community reacts to it, and then doesn't when it would hurt their fan boy standing, then karma is going to be the cruel bitch she actually is.

That said, cd3 has always looked pretty poor. It's passable, but nothing amazing, and in some cases looks terrible. The cloud destruction is the most obvious downgrades but I guess we can say it isn't since ms never showed it in to game, just hyped it up as more than what they finally delivered.

[IRetrouk]

No they deffo showed it in game, more than once, they used the 2015 destruction footage to promote the game again after that, was still a whole city of destruction. The downgrade happened and the spinning is in full force, what was promised is not what is being given, the double standards around here is as much of a joke as puddlegate was.

[OffRoadKing]

Its not a normal practice to be downgraded this significantly especially for a game running on "Da Beast" and using the power of "Da Cloud".

[OC_MurphysLaw]

MP certainly was shifted and toned down. That is disappointing to see and frankly one element I was really hoping would pan out but once it got into trouble in the dev cycle I had a feeling we would not get that original version. My hope is that maybe they will at some point release a MP map that is more representative of the city and not the Tron simulation look.

As for the single player, I am not sure what to make there as the comparison shots are wildly different. The E3 shot was at night up high over looking the city, and this shot is of a parking lot during the day time. So, we shall see... but ultimately what I want is the single player to have that same fun orb grabbing hunt vibe to it.

[Gamingisfornerds]

Agreed. The SP footage in the article is a deliberate poorly chosen comparison. There's current footage out there at night time with a view on the skyscrapers and it looks about on par to the earlier SP footage.

The MP though, yeah...that's a painful downgrade indeed. Luckily for me, all I care about is the Crackdown SP and that looks good to me.

[Atomicjuicer]

What was the exec who oversaw this called? Mattrick or something?

Death by greed.

[Kribwalker]

yeah this is the end of the Mattrick era

[JesusBuiltmyHotrod]

LOL yeah Spencer takes all the credit gets no blame in Xbox fantasy world..Dude has been high up at xbox since 360 days many of MS mis-steps are on him as well.

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

Still flogging that old chestnut, 5+ years in development and its Mattricks fault. So you know how ridiculous that sounds.

Cut the bloke some slack, he has been gone forever and he still cops the heat.

But not teflon Phil, the white knight of xbox. Wake up, they're all as bad as each other at ms.

[Razzer]

Mattrick has nothing to do with Crackdown 3. It has been almost 6 years since Mattrick left Microsoft. Crackdown 3 was announced at E3 the year after Mattrick resigned from MS.

[gangsta_red]

It might have been in development and talks while Mattrick was still at Xbox. Then officially announced at E3 after his way out.

I also agree this is the last game from the Mattrick era.

[Razzer]

"It might have been in development and talks while Mattrick was still at Xbox."

Might have. No one really knows. Regardless, years after the fact, it doesn't really matter. Phil Spencer announced the game. Crackdown 3 is part of the Phil Spencer era.

[gangsta_red]

David Jones actually announced Crackdown 3 at E3 and I'm going to have to say Phil inherited Crackdown 3.

IMO, games like Fable Legends, Scalebound (and wasn't there one more?) that were cancelled where under the Mattrick era. Crackdown was announced at the same time as those mentioned (right?), probably was on the chopping block at some point but the blow back would have been overwhelming for MS.

But like you said, regardless, it's here.

On topic:
I never thought Crackdown was going to be a graphical masterpiece, I was more concerned if it would work...never said it had to look nice

🤗

[Razzer]

"David Jones actually announced Crackdown 3 at E3"

Ah....I stand corrected.

I was never expecting anything visually from Crackdown 3 either. The graphical destruction stuff definitely took a hit from its pre-alpha footage, but I was never interested in playing online regardless. The campaign graphics seems to be fine and in line with what they have shown in actual footage. That single player video gearnuke shows:

https://i.imgur.com/bYVPzhQ...

That was never advertised as in-game footage so I never expected it to look like that. In-game footage from that video was clearly marked as such:

https://www.unilad.co.uk/wp...

[Gamingsince1981]

@gangsta red

"On topic: 
I never thought Crackdown was going to be a graphical masterpiece, I was more concerned if it would work...never said it had to look nice 

🤗"

And it didn't work ......... the destruction was downgraded that much it would work just as well offline on the base Xbox 1

[DaDrunkenJester]

Yeah this is the last Mattrick headed game

[Rude-ro]

😂 so you are saying Phil is the reason said game is downgraded so much?
I mean, the comparison is from then to now.

[DaDrunkenJester]

@Rude-ro

Well Mattrick is the one who tried to sell everyone on a pre-alpha tech demo, Spencer got left with the actual game and what the tech could do in a REAL environment.

But if you want to look at it so black and white, then sure. Spencer's version IS downgraded from a PRE-ALPHA TECH DEMO!

[Rude-ro]

There is one hitch with this..
Mattrick was gone before the tech demo.
Phil was calling the shots.
But good try at a spin though.
Tech demo was in 2014
Mattrick was fired in 2013

[DaDrunkenJester]

@Rude-ro

Then it was Ballmer... Either way this tech and such was long planned before both of them were fired. You think they just set up that tech demo willy nilly with the cloud and such?

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

But this doesn't look impressive on any level, graphics or gameplay. Irrespective of who started development or announcing it, this looks like trash.

[trooper_]

Yes, blame the guy that’s been gone in like forever./s

You people have no shred of dignity. You would rather take crap than demand quality.

Unbelievable.

[rainslacker]

So we blame mattrick when it turns.out bad, but give credit to Spencer when it turms out good? Spencer had the authority to cancel games he felt weren't going to be good. He didn't, so he is as.much to blame for broken promises or lackluster releases as anyone. He's promoted this game more than anyone in ms.

Xbox.fan are really getting desperate to mitigate the "damage" here. You know it's ok to think this game looks bad, or it's ok to admit ms screwed up and isn't delivering what was promised or implied, and still buy or enjoy the game. You don't have to justify your like or purchase of this game to anyone. But if you keep trying to act like its not a big deal or try to shift blame from the obvious, people are just going to laugh and mock you, because t ey can't take you seriously.

[Elda]

LOL! Smh.

[bluefox755]

The word "downgrade" really sums up this game.

[lellkay]

Everything in this game has been downgraded severely.

[AmUnRa]

Yes the graphics and the whole Cloud promise... And it has nothing to do with Mattrick, thats b*s.

[Razzer]

If it is a fun game then it won't really matter.

[dRanzer]

5 years and all we gets is "fun".
Ridiculous

[Razzer]

Why is "fun" ridiculous?

[dRanzer]

Fun game is God of War ,i beat it like 5 times.
Can you see people here playing crackdown 3 for that amount of time?
I put god of war here because the four years developing time

[Razzer]

No, but I don't think anyone expecting a game the caliber of God of War.

[Thundercat77]

But if it is a playstation game, then it does matter right?

#DoubleStandards

[Razzer]

"But if it is a playstation game, then it does matter right?"

Hardly. I didn't get Platinum trophies in Spider-man and God of War because the games looked awesome. The game play was incredible and fun as hell.

"#DoubleStandards"

LOL. You don't know what you are talking about.

[OffRoadKing]

That's a shame it should matter to you. Many games are fun and a technical showcase. MS is phoning it in with stuff like this and you saying it doesn't matter and giving them a pass for it will only lead to more of it.

[Razzer]

Yeah.....I'll give them a pass if the game is fun to play. I'm not sure why that is such a "shame". Frankly, it is a shame folks get all over excited about crap like this every single time there is a new first party game out. And I'm not going to start pretending this REALLY mattered to me just because you say it should. Sorry. Not happening.

[OffRoadKing]

That's fine dude you're the one who has to deal with the results of settling for mediocre efforts from MS not me. But I get what you're saying, I don't get why people get over excited about puddles in games either but hey I guess everyone has their thing.

[Razzer]

If the game sucks then I'll call it out and slam MS for another subpar game. That's not "settling for mediocre efforts". That's waiting for results rather than predetermining them. Yeah, that's my thing.

[OffRoadKing]

And that's fine and well within your right to do so but to not realize where this is heading based on everything we are hearing and seeing about this game lately its disingenuous to not admit that its not looking good.

[JesusBuiltmyHotrod]

Sony does not get enough credit for how they show their games. No BS trailers, in game gameplay that often looks better by release. Barely anyone else is doing that. Crackdown was always a tech demo that was never going to look like what they showed, i said it then and got bashed by xbox fans of course, they have higher standards for Sony's games then their own lol.

[Baza]

Even the mighty Xbox1X with cloud computing can’t handle these mediocore graphics. Pathetic.

[Emme]

Ok, I guess Sunset Overdrive looks better than this. Between Saints Row, Just Cause 3 (or 4), ForzaHorizon, GTA... and Crackdown 3, why would anybody play THIS ? Seriously, MS !

[sampsonon]

yup

[burza1982]

No way...the greatest console on planet...XBox one...how come?

[sprinterboy]

People have been living under a rock if they expected any different.

[CrimsonWing69]

wow, and here people made a big deal about puddles in Spider-Man.

[Thundercat77]

As a fellow user wrote...

'Xbox fans have higher standards for Sony's games then their own lol."

[StormSailor]

Crackdown 3 was announced inside a lie, a lie that Microsoft could not sustain. It just was not canceled because Microsoft could not handle another cancellation

Phil Spencer is the biggest enemy of the Xbox, the Xbox haters must love this guy

[rainslacker]

They got too wrapped up in the power of the cloud talk early on, and spent too much time trying to prove it's worth. If they hadn't done that, they could have just implemented it quietly, and talk about it as an experiment for this game, but not it's core selling point, and it would make.cloud power more interesting, because people wouldn't be expecting 3x the power of the console.

But ms.reacted to Sony having a more powerful system, at a cheaper price and needed a quick band aid to stop the band aid.

In the end, ms has done more to become the butt of people's jokes and done more to.make people want to mock them, because they're really trying to hard to look good, instead of just being good and letting nature take its.course.

[Spurg]

If this was a first party developer then the results would have been much better. Outsourcing to Sumo digital was a fatal mistake from Microsoft and the same can be said about scalebound with Platinum.

[King2x]

let’s not act like Microsoft Recent first party made games hasn’t been trash. both sea of thieves and state of decay are made by Microsoft first party studios both games are trash.

[Profchaos]

It's gone beyond a downgrade

[Moe-Gunz]

I’ve seen better looking games made in the Dreams Beta than this.

[yomfweeee]

The power of the cloud! Something you've never seen before! 5 years into this generation, you can get last gen graphics! Unheard of!

[Imalwaysright]

Definetely downgraded.

[THC CELL]

It's sad red faction 2 dose it better

[SinisterKieran]

But...it never looked good to begin with so I don’t really get it.

[Pantz]

Comparing a tech demo to a full game release... top notch journalism there.

[OffRoadKing]

So you're ok with the huge downgrade then?

[Pantz]

No, if this game on was on PS4 there wouldn't be any downgrade. It would be just like that tech demo.

[cell989]

Funny how the developer said “we’re only using but a fraction of the power of the cloud” lol that’s why it looks so downgraded guys. If they were to use the full power, it would look next gen.... keep that in mind haters lol :S

[NXFather]

I like Xbox and PS and Nintendo but, Joe Statten is an idiot and a liar as well as Phil Spencer. Spencer maybe better than mattrick though.

[cell989]

Don’t forget Grennberg

[NXFather]

Oh man absof***inglutely. Lying bearded banjo player.

[optimus]

judging from the new gameplay i saw today on inside xbox I'd venture to say that the visuals have been upgraded quite a bit from what we've seen...maybe they've been holding out so that when the game releases they just flip the switch to surprise everyone that day.

[Gamingsince1981]

The visuals aren't even the biggest problem, this game was the show case for what "cloud power" could do but it's doing what any console could do without the cloud.

[Potnoodle999]

For me it’s the animations...not the textures. That’s what makes it look like a 360 game 😂 I mean wtf is wrong with the animations!?

[ironmonkey]

Look the game is gonna suck let it get the shitty reviews please move on to the next game plz ms.

[Redlife2g]

This is a shame to read..could the one x not handle it??

[RGB]

"Crackdown 3 Appears To Be Another Game That Has Its Visuals Downgraded"
A visual downgrade... It looks like a 4K Xbox 360 game! It doesn't even remotely look anything like the tech demo nor the original gameplay. MS could have relabeled the game and we'd have had no idea about it, forever thinking what happened to the good looking stuff! This is, without doubt, the worst downgrade in the history of gaming.

[DarXyde]

The visual downgrade is not the biggest deal, in my opinion.

The problem is that the destruction is not like advertised at all. I can understand running into hurdles, but after 5 years, I'd be profoundly embarrassed to not deliver on the technology they lauded so much.

I'm sure the cloud is doing its job with the destruction, but the game is ugly and runs at 30fps.

Given the development time, visuals, complacent gameplay, and overwhelming use of cloud technology that is apparently still not there yet, I would say the game is a failure before it even released. It could be a commercial success which is probably all Microsoft cares about, but this game has red flags all over it.

Fortunately, if you have Game Pass, it's not the end of the world.

[2ndhandcorn]

Am getting old macular degeneration has hit so no biggie for me my eyes have downgraded, i can still hear the orbs calling to me though hanging to play it.

[masterfox]

https://i.imgur.com/7pXnLQs...

WTF? seriously just cancelled this thing already.

[DarXyde]

I mean, it's ugly and it really can't live up to the wait and hype, but it's also free for those with Game Pass, so probably not the worst investment, honestly.

[Dragonscale]

5 years for this? What a joke lol.

[bellome]

Where's my power of the cloud?

[Kosic]

I don't think they tried to hide that... Check original video game looked sharp. Check recent videos, it looks like a HD remaster of last gen.

[PumPum]

What a huge difference! :O Looks like they scrapped the original and quickly made something else.