Microsoft and Remedy Entertainment dropped a new trailer for military shooter Crossfire X at X019 today, showing off gameplay of the free-to-play title’s upcoming Xbox One version and setting a release window for next year.
Already a major multiplayer hit in its native South Korea, Crossfire focuses on high-octane battles between two private militias enmeshed in a globe-spanning war. The PC version of the game, which launched in 2007, boasts a player count of over 660 million today, and original developer Smilegate is partnering with Xbox Game Studios and Remedy to bring the game to international markets as Crossfire X, exclusive to the Xbox One with a new single-player campaign.
The gameplay trailer, titled “Black Widow,” shows off explosive footage of firefights between Crossfire X’s Global Risk and Black List factions, with a style that particularly positions the shooter as a counterpart and rival to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Story details have yet to be fully revealed, but Remedy says the morals of the factions involved in the plot - one made up of military veterans establishing order and the other with mercenaries fighting for freedom - won't be easily placed into classifications of good and evil.
Remedy’s collaborative work on Crossfire X serves as something of a departure from its previous third-person action games, including this year’s Control. The Finnish studio is best known for its early work with Rockstar on the first two entries of the Max Payne trilogy, as well as its two previous collaborations with Microsoft, the maligned Quantum Break and the cult favorite Alan Wake series. Fans will have to wait to see if the studio’s signature style of TV-like storytelling and strong characterization will be present in the new project. The franchise has already drawn enough attention from Hollywood to place a big-screen adaptation in development, but word of the film hasn't emerged since being announced in 2015.
“We’re implementing everything that we know from the narrative side into a first-person military shooter,” Remedy Entertainment executive producer Tuukka Taipalvesi said in an Inside Xbox video released alongside the trailer for Crossfire X. “We’re taking the decade of background work that Smilegate has been doing for Crossfire, and we’re starting to bring it to life as a single player experience.”
“With Crossfire X we will bring an intense gameplay experience accessible to all kinds of FPS players through a somewhat unique and innovative game mode,” Smilegate technical art director Jin Woo Jung said in the video. “After ten years of success, now is the right time to prove what we can do.”
While comparable to the popularity of Call of Duty or Fortnite in Korea and surrounding countries, Crossfire X will have to build a following in North America from the ground up when it launches next year.
Crossfire X will be out in 2020 on the Xbox One.
Source: Remedy Games