14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has officially confirmed that Crackdown 2 is set to support 4 player co operative play in the main campaign and up to 16 players in competitive multiplayer. The data is shown on the game page for the title, which is being developed by Ruffian Games and set to arrive exclusively on the Xbox 360 probably sometime in 2010.
The first Cracksdown only had 2 player co operative play and the interaction was already one of the strong points of the experience. Four players thrown together, and cooperative in Pacific City sounds like something extraordinary, especially if the freedom, both of movement and of morality, which permeated in the first game is part of the blueprint for the second. Let's hope that, for Crackdown 2, the developers manage to create some interesting stories for the four characters.
The 16 player competitive multiplayer is also interesting, mostly because Microsoft has not offered any details on the modes that players will get to try, so there's more room for speculation. The best thing Ruffian Games could do is just drop the players into the city, preferably far apart from one another, and let them hunt each other out as they gain new capabilities from those they defeat.
Ruffian Games, which is set to handle development on Crackdown 2, was formed earlier in 2009 by Billy Thomson and Gaz Liddon. Both of them are veterans of the Realtime Worlds studio that created the first title in the series.
Even before the initial announcement of the formation of the studio, rumors were swirling that the outfit was put together and funded by Microsoft so that it could deliver a sequel to one of the best launch titles for the original Xbox console. The official unveiling of Crackdown 2 only took place last week at the E3 presentation that Microsoft held in Los Angeles.