Crackdown 3 Destruction Restricted to Multiplayer [Update]

Update: Microsoft has clarified that it's not the entirety of Crackdown 3 that will be available during summer 2016, as Dave Jones seemed to suggest. Instead, it's just multiplayer that will be playable in that window, according to a tweet. Whether that means a beta test or something else remains unclear, but we've followed up to find out more.

Original Story: Crackdown 3 impressed earlier this week with a demonstration of its fully destructible world, but that functionality will only be available in multiplayer.

That's according to Dave Jones, who revealed that the destruction's reliance on being connected to the cloud means it's a multiplayer-only feature in the Xbox One game. "Yes, [destruction is] exclusive to the multiplayer mode," Jones said when asked in an IGN interview. "You have to be online for multiplayer, and at that point we can connect to the cloud and really expand the experience."

That means you won't be toppling buildings in the single-player mode, both because you aren't connected to the cloud and because it doesn't make sense within the context of Crackdown.

"No, you can't [destroy buildings in single-player], and in some respects that goes against the grain of what Crackdown is," Jones said. "You're meant to be saving the city, so we really wanted to create a new multiplayer experience that bent that."

Crackdown has featured cooperative multiplayer before, but Crackdown 3 takes things further, at least by adding destruction. Beyond that, we don't know what form multiplayer will take; Jones and developer ReAgent aren't talking specifics just yet. Jones did say, "[I]t's a multiplayer experience that is more than just a simple deathmatch."

Crackdown 3--which will be called just that, despite Microsoft's previous suggestion otherwise--remains without a release date, but Jones narrowed it down to summer 2016. The game features an all-new city and more customization options, including the ability to play as a female agent.