The Crossfire franchise is about to expand with a new installment that looks very different from most of its predecessors. The series was created by Smilegate in 2007 and had enormous success, especially in China, as a tactical first-person shooter centered on objective-oriented game modes. For a while, it was even reportedly the most played game in the world before League of Legends surpassed it in 2017.
Smilegate tried to conquer the West, too, with CrossfireX, a new entry made specifically for the Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X consoles with the help of Remedy Entertainment, who handled the single player campaign portions. The single player was premium, while multiplayer was free-to-play. Even so, CrossfireX utterly failed, receiving negative scores from critics and shutting down around fifteen months after its launch. Here on Wccftech, Kai Tatsumoto rated the game 4/10:
Remedy’s inclusion into CrossfireX’s single-player campaign is perhaps the best part of the package that I could recommend. With extremely dated multiplayer mechanics that have been bandaged up with all of the modern retention techniques to keep players coming back to the mediocre shooter fare, CrossfireX is certainly a title that I wouldn’t be looking to recommend for anyone looking for their weekend FPS fix. Once you take away Remedy’s campaign offerings and look purely at Smilegate Entertainment’s multiplayer component, you’re left with a shooter mode that ultimately feels cheap despite how much effort is spent into extracting money and time from the player.
After that attempt, Smilegate tried a real-time strategy game called Crossfire: Legion and made by the franchise veterans at Blackbird Interactive (Homeworld 3). That game received better reviews but didn't really gain a fanbase, either, and will be delisted next week on Steam.
Now, Smilegate has unveiled a new title called Crossfire: Rainbow. This is once again a first-person tactical shooter, but with a heavy horror theme, from the looks of it. It also only shows the main player, suggesting this won't be an online title, although it may still have multiplayer modes for all we know.
Indeed, only scant details are available online at this time, although an official website can be found here. We'll monitor any new information worth reporting on this intriguing project.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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