Crackdown, Scalebound Bombshell Drops Ahead of E3 2015

With the overwhelming majority of the video games industry preparing for next week’s E3 2015 trade show in Los Angeles, California, one might assume Microsoft would be keeping quiet about its plans. That’s not actually what’s happening though. Late yesterday the maker of the Xbox One entertainment console hyped its own E3 2015 offerings and then dropped a bombshell on players. Crackdown, Quantum Break and Scalebound won’t be shown during the briefing, it seems.

The revelation came at the tail end of a post made to the Xbox Wire newsblog by Xbox head Phil Spencer. According to Spencer, Xbox E3 2015 Media Briefing watchers can “rest assured that titles like Crackdown, Quantum Break and Scalebound will be front and center at gamescom along with new game reveals for both Xbox One and Windows 10.”

Before the revelation, Spencer talks at detail about the things enthusiasts can expect from the Xbox E3 2015 presentation on Monday, June 15th. He’s said repeatedly that the Xbox team within Microsoft fully intends to treat Windows 10 PCs like a console launch and this post definitely lends itself to that. Windows 10 is mentioned through out, with Spencer going into some detail about the new Oculus Rift VR headset compatibility coming to Windows 10 and the Xbox One. He also talks briefly about HoloLens, the wearable Windows 10 computer that Microsoft unveiled at an event back in late January.

Read: 8 Games We Expect to See at E3 2015 Coming This Year

On one hand, Microsoft waiting until its gamescom briefing in August to announce games and new experiences is a terrific thing. Gamescom is the biggest video games conference in Europe, like the Electronic Entertainment Expo is here in the United States. Having something hotly anticipated and exciting to show there shows that Microsoft is paying attention to games in Europe, not just the United States. Focusing too much on North America is something Microsoft and Xbox in particular are criticized for often.

That being said, it’s still a bit strange for Microsoft to be tampering expectations this close to the show. Quantum Break in particular seems strange since it was originally slated for release this year and then delayed into next year. It is worth noting that Microsoft showed off Quantum Break at Gamescom last year too.

Crackdown is one huge mystery many hoped Microsoft would reveal fully sooner rather than later. Except for a single trailer during last year’s E3 Media Briefing, we’ve heard nothing about the game. It does appear as if Crackdown is a complete reboot instead of a sequel to the original Xbox 360 series of games. In the reveal trailer last year we saw a team of different agents in the game formulate an elaborate plan to knock over the sky scraper a bad guy was in. Certainly, Microsoft was hinting at open-world co-operative multiplayer for the game, but we just don’t know enough to say what the Crackdown experience will be like for sure.

We’re in the same situation with Scalebound too. We know that dragons will heavily factor into that game. We also know that it’s being developed by Platinum Games, most known for Bayonetta and the studio that most recently released The Legend of Korra.

Read: 5 Xbox One & Xbox 360 Things We Hope to See at E3 2015

Microsoft says that it had so much content to show at its E3 2015 Media Briefing that it just couldn’t fit it all into a 90 minute broadcast. We’ll all get to judge that for ourselves beginning on Monday. Microsoft’s briefing is the first major event of the show.