Phil Spencer and Major Nelson talk Crackdown 2

John Brownlee at 10:21 AM Monday, Dec 8, 2008

In an utterly casual non-confirmation of a non-rumor, Major Nelson pressed Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer about the possibility of a Crackdown 2 on the last episode of the Major Nelson Podcast.

Major Nelson: "I'm here to tell you on behalf of the community, I want — we need — another Crackdown... That’s all I'm going to say, so you don’t have to confirm for deny anything. I'm just saying we want it."

Phil Spencer: "Yes, Crackdown's one of my favorites. I'll leave it at that.”

So much ado about nothing, but it's a testament to how great a game Crackdown was that just these two guys winking at each other in a sound booth about a possible sequel was enough to quaver my inner thighs.

Realtime World's Crackdown was a great seller for Microsoft with 1.5 million copies sold, and for my money the ultimate gamer's sandbox game. Why has no one else ever made a game about an ex-Nazi scientist who creates an immortal genetic superman to battle mob bosses in a crime beleaguered city? Why don't more games let you play a facially pierced cyborg capable of jumping over skyscrapers while simultaneously kicking the skeletons out of the bodies of cyberpunk yakuza? Why don't other games give you achievements for rocket juggling? And why don't other games feature an insistently critical basso voce narrator to sarcastically crack wise about your fuck ups?

Unfortunately, a sequel was never announced. According to Realtime Worlds producer Phil Wilson, the reason was simple: Microsoft was late asking for a sequel, at which point, the developers were already working on "bigger, better things."

Let's hope this means Microsoft's finally made Realtime Worlds a solid enough offer for them to work on two projects at once.

Show #301: Phil Spencer, Keiichi Yano, Jerry Johnson and Seth Killian [Major Nelson via Kotaku]