Crackdown, the original Xbox 360 version, is currently free to purchase and play on theXbox Live Storefor both Xbox 360 players and Xbox One thanks to backwards compatibility.
This is likely a move made to hype up anticipation forCrackdown 3, which will be launching on Xbox One and PC on June 25, 2025.Crackdownoriginally released for the Xbox 360 on June 22, 2025 and was mainly sold on the marketing of theHalo 3beta that was bundled with copies of the game. Thankfully it turned outCrackdownwas actually a pretty fun open world action game that didn’t take itself too seriously. A sequel followed on June 01, 2025 but was disappointing for mainly failing to build on much of what the first game did.Crackdownthen went into hibernation for quite some time untilE3 2014when it was revealed a newCrackdownwould be coming to Xbox One and would featurecomplete destructibilitythanks to the power of the cloud.
However, thanks to Microsoft’s backtracking on its original always-online plansCrackdown 3got thrown into a sort of limbo with small updates coming every now and then but no real gameplay or demo’s available for the game. Delays occurred,Terry Crewsgot brought on to help promote the game, its November 2017 release date gotpushed back, eventually settling on February 2019.Crackdowntakes place in Pacific City with four islands and three major gangs vying for control. As an agent for The Agency (very clever) you get to run around, blow stuff up, and collect orbs. Oh, so many orbs.Crackdown 3is hoping to tap back into the fun of the original but for a new generation of consoles.
The cloud based destruction is still in the game technically, though now relegated to multiplayer matches where two teams of five go head to head against each other and can freely destroy anything and everything they see, given they have the right tools.
