Crackdown is day ten of our series on 15 Xbox classics you can still play on Xbox Series X|S. Realtime Worlds’ superpowered open-world game came out on Xbox 360 in 2007, and it’s the only game in this series you can download for free.
Crackdown at a glance
- Developer: Realtime Worlds
- Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
- Original release: 20 February 2007 (North America), 23 February 2007 (Europe)
- Original console: Xbox 360
- Xbox Store price: free
- Game Pass: not included (no subscription needed)
- Backward compatible since: 27 February 2018
- Enhancements: Xbox One X Enhanced
What is Crackdown?
Crackdown is a third-person open-world action game set in Pacific City, a metropolis split between three criminal organisations: Los Muertos, the Volk and the Shai-Gen Corporation. You play a biologically enhanced Agent working for the Agency, and your job is to take down each gang’s Kingpin.
You can go after a Kingpin at any time, but taking out their Generals first weakens them. Kill a gang’s weapons dealer, for example, and its members are less heavily armed. The whole city is open from the start.
The Agent improves in five skills: Agility, Driving, Explosives, Strength and Firearms. Defeated enemies drop orbs that match how you beat them. Agility orbs sit on rooftops and ledges, which turns climbing Pacific City’s buildings into a big part of the game. A two-player co-op mode lets a friend drop into your city over Xbox Live.
Crackdown’s history on Xbox
Crackdown was the idea of Realtime Worlds founder David Jones, who also created Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto. Development started in 2002 with nine people, aiming for a 2005 release on the original Xbox. In 2004, Microsoft gave the team Xbox 360 hardware and suggested moving the game to the new console.
The team wanted to reward players for simply having fun. According to Wikipedia’s account of its development, Realtime Worlds originally planned 200 achievements, well above Microsoft’s cap of 50 per game at the time, and pushed Microsoft to lift it. Microsoft raised the limit to 80. Testers kept climbing the Agency Tower, so the team made the clouds render differently each day, visible only from the top. Driving the Agency SUV up a vertical wall with maxed-out Driving skill started as a bug that the team chose to keep.
Development was hard going, and in October 2006 the game scored poorly with Microsoft’s test players. To help it, Microsoft put access to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta in pre-ordered and specially marked copies of Crackdown. The beta opened on 16 May 2007 and ran for three weeks.
A demo arrived on Xbox Live Marketplace on 23 January 2007. The full game launched that February and was the best-selling game in North America that month. It sold 1.5 million copies by the end of 2007 and won BAFTA awards for Best Action and Adventure Game and Best Use of Audio. Free downloads in 2007 added four new Agents and a “Keys to the City” sandbox mode, and a second pack, Gettin’ Busy, added vehicles, weapons and side missions.
Ruffian Games, formed by former Realtime Worlds staff, made Crackdown 2 for Xbox 360 in July 2010. Crackdown 3 followed on Xbox One in February 2019.
Why it matters
Crackdown is tied into the Xbox 360’s early history in a few ways. It was the way into the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, and its developer’s push for more achievements led Microsoft to raise its per-game limit. Its focus on climbing, orb-hunting and open-ended play also started a series that ran across two Xbox console generations.
How to play Crackdown on Xbox Series X|S today
Crackdown joined Xbox One backward compatibility on 27 February 2018, and it runs on Xbox Series X|S too. It’s been free to download from the Xbox Store since November 2018, so you don’t need Game Pass to play it.
It’s listed as Xbox One X Enhanced. It doesn’t have FPS Boost.
If you own the Xbox 360 disc, an Xbox One or Xbox Series X will recognise it and download the backward-compatible version. The Halo 3 beta it unlocked has long since closed.
More on Crackdown
Our Crackdown hub has the essentials and will collect future coverage. Tomorrow, the series moves on to Mass Effect, where Commander Shepard’s story began.
