A Single Player & Multiplayer Merge Like No Other
The Crossing coming to Xbox 360
An innovative FPS going cross-platform gaming where YOU can become the NPC’s
by XboxOZ360
© 2008 Grant Smythe
Now this one has been siting around for a little while and has decided to pop its head up once more. Created by the well respected French Developers Arkane Studios, who have brought you such delights as Dark Messiah of Might And Magic, bring you this, their new take on Single Player – Multiplayer Merging. The Crossing. The videos are worth the watch, and check out the screenshots in the Media Department toward the end of this post.
It’s where Single Player comes in contact with Multiplayer, and where you could play the role of a NPC, or have someone drop in on you and be playing the role of any NPC within the story line. It’s not your average First Person Shooter, that’s for sure, and will have you grabbing your head in amazement as to how all this will work.
Essentially it’s a CrossPlayer FPS where the Single Player and Multiplayer elements are merged into one game. It could be the game that brings those solo-single-player gamers into contact with the Multiplayers-diehards, and visa-versa. Which can only be a good thing – hopefully.
The best bet is to watch both videos and to get a better understanding of how it all works, and the efforts Arkane are putting into this title. And like all games, this has been in the works now for several years (around 3 or more) and still has a little more to go before being released onto the unsuspecting gaming public. Yet another game that has been on the Xbox360 Up-Coming Games Listing for some time now . . . but basically ignored by many.
The Crossing is a first-person shooter that fuses single player and multiplayer, allowing Xbox Live players to take the place of NPCs in someone else’s single player campaign, where the game spans across two separate realities of Paris, bring both the early crusade era of the Nights Templar, and modern day Paris that is going to all hell in light of past events.
Follow for the video and media screens:
Modern day Paris is under siege, and heading for wrack and ruin, while it seems the Nights Templar have managed to survive the 1307 cleansing and have set about dealing with the anarchist of the current time, having “crossed” over into present day as the two separate universes collide to help sort out the wrongs and hopefully set things right once more.
Personally I can see this game helping get the two current day faction together, the Single Player and the Multiplayer gamers, who often choose one or the other and play that style exclusively. With each obviously missing out on certain elements that are only available in ne mode or the other.
Here they are merged, and there’s talk of tying both Games For Windows users with XboxLive users, adding yet another meaning to the games tittle – The Crossing.
© 2008 Grant Smythe
Media:
Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, New Game Information, Xbox 360 3rd Party Games Tagged: | arkane studios, cross play, Crossing., CrossPlay, The Crossing, The Crossings, Xbox 360 new game
It is important to note also that the Xbox 360 runs on a heavily modified/updated DX9 architecture. Although it’s not exactly up to DX10, it can be basically seen as DX9.5 or something
very true words Grant.
Especially being an up and coming independent game developer. if they are developing a game for the PC, they have to look at their other choices as well. the 360 has a great install user base as you said there are 17 million units out there.
Imagine if Crysis did come out on the 360 with its PC version it would have had much better sales. reason many people didn’t buy it for the PC, mainly because they didn’t have the hardware to run the game on their PC. So having it on the 360 would of given it while not the biggest number of sales, still a great increase in the sales it had.
if i was the head of a up and coming game developer studio and i was just aiming to have my game on the PC, i would be definitely looking to bring it out on the 360 as it is much easier to program for and the reward would be much greater.
Reason i wouldn’t be looking to release on the PS3, is mainly because of the difficulty to program and also i wouldn’t have the man power to have a certain group designated to program for the PS3.
But later down the track after getting more funds, and an increased man power install base, i would definitively be looking to the PS3, unless of course MS were to buy my studio
then i work for Microsoft Game Studios hehe
I seriously think many PC developers can see the huge benefits of coming onto the 360 platform. Not only is is ‘relatively’ simple to work with, in comparison to other platforms,
Plus they see a HUGE and stead growth in the take up of consoles and when they see an attachment rate of 6:1 for the 360, and that there’s now 17 million units out there . .you’d have to be daft not to even consider the possibilities . .
It’s just been reported that Alan Wake will be a Vista Exclusive (but also including the 360 – naturally) . .and as we know, it runs DivX. And yet they say the game will be appearing on the 360 as promised.
So the old bah-who of games like that if they have DivX10 support on the PC, can’t and wont run on the 360 . . it’s bulldust. Do people honestly think that a game that is costing upwards of $US25mil to make and develop, let alone market will be JUST set aside for a OS that has yet to be fully taken up, and the bulk of the OS available to end users is XP . . no, they’ll look at the 360 as their alternative.
There’s actual footage of gameplay of Crysis running on 360 hardware, just in DivX9, not DivX10 . . . showing that the game can and does run on the 360. But Crteck don’t want to sink their PC boat, so mention of it simply isn’t made. We will see some form of Crysis on the 360 at some stage. As t when and in what form we simply don’t know at this stage.
*starts drooling* S.T.A.L.K.E.R on PC is by far 1 of my favourite games. The atmosphere was just extraordinary. i mean the characters, the attitudes, the authentic russian voices just made me believe i was actually there, in the after math of Chernobyl. With Clear Skies if it does grace the 360 that would be awesome, but i will still probably end up getting it for the PC, as my best gaming experiences with Stalker were on the pc.
Me to, as it would be something that may well get me interested in MP, and hopefully, get the MP-Diehards who think SP is for whimps, to see that there’s two side to a story – as it were.
There’s a few sleep games hanging around that could well add a different dimension to games now that we have stronger consoles to warrant the developers to go further with them
Now that Russian developers of STALKER are on side with MS Certification, there’s a very strong that STALKER and its follow add-on Clear Skies will grace the 360. Both of which I’d actually love to see on the 360
I’ve been wondering when or if this one was going to pop up again…it does seem very interesting. I hope it works as it would add a new genre of shooter.
mmm yes it look really interesting, “if” they can get this to work right this should be a great title to own. the aspect of joining someones SP game and being a mercenary and then killing the main character will be fun
lol
Yes, my thoughts exactly. I saw the interview style video last year and was quite intrigued about it, and saw ‘similarities” to Assassin’s Creed in some ways.
So it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, and how they merge both Windows and XboxLive together. It seemed to work on Shadowrun (which btw may well have a sequel coming out ?? )
It could be the thing that gets many Solo-Single players involved in MP . . . and visa-versa . . . ?
This is looking interesting