Bad news for Xbox fans of first-person shooters. Another high-profile Xbox-exclusive FPS has joined Halo Infinite in being delayed out of 2020, that game being the next entry in Smilegate Entertainment’s popular Crossfire series, CrossfireX.
CrossfireX is a collaboration between Smilegate and Remedy Entertainment, with Smilegate working on the series’ trademark tactical multiplayer while Remedy develops a single-player campaign designed to introduce Crossfire’s narrative to a wider audience. Given the split nature of the project, its development was bound to be a little trickier than usual, but it hasn’t helped that the COVID-19 pandemic has also caused unforeseen problems for the two companies.
This probably won’t be a surprising turn of events for anyone who’s been keeping track of all of the games that have been delayed as a result of COVID-19 and the difficulties that come with trying to continue development in a work-from-home environment. It’s for these reasons that Smiegate announced on the official Crossfire Twitter page that CrossfireX is now on track to launch in 2021, adding that the delay will allow it and Remedy to “deliver the Crossfire experience on console our team set out to create.”
The delay to 2021 also puts the game’s launch in closer proximity to the new game that Smilegate has partnered with Amazon to release next year. What this game is still largely unknown, but the wording in Amazon’s original announcement suggested that it could potentially be a live-service game. Also, in light of Amazon’s recent push into cloud-based gaming with its new streaming service, Luna, it’s likely that this mystery title won’t end up joining CrossfireX on Xbox systems.
CrossfireX will launch for Xbox One and Xbox Series X in 2021.