Crackdown 3 hands-on preview — A long awaited game emerges from limbo

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
February 1, 2019
Updated June 17, 2025
4 min

Microsoft is standing firm on its pledge that Crackdown 3, which was first shown to the public in 2014, is coming out for Xbox One and PC on February 15. And I could pretty much vouch for that, since I was able to play some of the single-player campaign and its four-versus-four multiplayer combat mode, dubbed the Wrecking Zone.

Fans have been waiting for this for a long time. Like the earlier games, it is full of neon art and bombastic gameplay from the likes of characters like a digital version of Terry Crews.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.