With over 690 million registered users crossfire is perhaps the greatest multiplayer shooter in the world. What makes the recent Xbox release special, however, is the inclusion of a two-part single-player campaign developed by Remedy Entertainment, the makers of control, Max payne, and Alan Wake, to name a few. It’s a shame that Remedy, despite being a master of storytelling, world-building, high-minded ideas and able to work with such a large fortune, has delivered mediocrity this time.
crossfire was originally created by South Korean developer Smilegate Entertainment. It has a huge following in China and South Korea and the like counterstrike and other team shooters, it puts players in the footsteps of two opposing but theoretically similar teams: Black List and Global Risk. In terms of lore, both are mercenary groups, one rumored to be a terrorist organization (claiming to fight for freedom) and the other an anti-terrorist faction (claiming to be law and order).
All right then. I guess. Having two indistinguishable teams has always worked for multiplayer shooter purposes. The problem is that this moralistic antagonism has no place in the new story-driven gameplay, as players don’t spend time questioning these principles on the battlefield, just exchanging volleys of bullets.
The “Catalyst” campaign sees players flown in in the boots of a Global Risk team Any war-torn Eastern European city that’s ever appeared in military shooters to take down a blacklisted leader. The story is told by a character named Captain Hall, who is so generic that his name might as well be John Smith. It is a vector of action that does justice to archetypal roles: father, husband, friend. What kind of father, husband or friend is he? I have no idea. His personality is as shallow as the plot and his dialogue is just a kind of metatron for the gods of the plot. He is a sieve that history is pushed through before becoming a dismembered mess on the other side.
The story follows Hall as he receives strange, dream-like messages from his missing friends. It seems Black List has discovered a supercomputer called the Catalyst that can predict the future if it finds the right host. Having finished both campaigns, I still have no idea what the Catalyst looked like, where it came from, or who might have made it.” It was just…there.
Players switch between three characters: Hall as the attacker, Randall the sniper, and Moralez the heavy marksman. The campaign takes place ad nauseam in drab, poorly maintained grounds and buildings, with tufts of grass, windblown parks and so on. Either catalyst and the following campaign, spooknormal citizens don’t seem to exist – everyone either carries a gun or is on their way to pick one up.
The opening sequence for “Spectre” drops players – literally out of a helicopter – onto a moving train where they take on the role of a man named Logan. This time players are in Black List’s boots. In one of the few interesting scripting maneuvers, players must now eliminate a mercenary from the previous campaign, a man the game clearly wants us to empathize with, however difficult it may be.
spook‘s bombastic intro sees players moving from the train into nocturnal urban environments, fighting their way to the top of a corporate building and destroying said structure. After a short breather, players switch perspectives again and suddenly find themselves in the shoes of a petty thief named Torres, who turns out to be a wanted criminal for a crime he hasn’t yet committed. This opens up intriguing possibilities and suggests the plot is picking up steam – Philip K. Dick explored this concept in the minority report,
But Remedy doesn’t offer that potential. Despite being paragons in the realm of weird sci-fi stories, the usually excellent storytellers offer little backstory, pacing, or plot to implement these lofty concepts. Torres is seen as a future criminal, and Global Risk seeks to prevent a future disaster as you ride along – a bumpy, nervous, often confusing ride. While this isn’t a stellar Remedy game in terms of narrative or consciousness, the weapons feel solid and the death animations felt sickeningly realistic. It’s a remedy game in his muscles and bones, but not in his mind.
But as a package catalyst and spook might be the most fast-paced video game stories I’ve come across in years, populated by shallow characters and anchored only by whispers of intrigue rather than truly compelling storylines. It all ended up showing just a glimmer of that Remedy weirdness I’ve come to love over the years. Stories of “strange ancient supercomputers capable of destroying the world” or “magic soldiers becoming harbingers of doom” are exactly in Remedy’s wheelhouse – yes CrossfireX never looks at or explores them in a fascinating way. in the control, where players experienced the most bizarre of concepts, the story was fleshed out through in-universe explanations, so far-fetched, that connected all parts. Such a connection is completely absent in CrossfireX. It’s all just glorified window dressing.
It feels like Remedy is trying to emulate its usual greatness but doesn’t understand what makes its other projects so special. The studio has taken fears of self-destruction, the fragility of reality and fear of the unknown, and crafted them all into its own unique brand Strange. control used a superhero origin story to show how the most mundane things in the world can kill us; Alan Wake took a cheesy horror plot to illustrate the world-changing power of storytelling; Max Payne took your average snarling action cop game and turned his revenge into poetry that showed us the futility of self-destruction.
I kept hoping and waiting for a similar subversion of Remedy in this mediocre military shooter – waiting for a Remedy shard to pop out of the skin of this boring carcass of a game. But nothing came out. Remedy’s brand is just a thin film that this limp mess has been stuffed into.
I’ve always been fascinated by Remedy’s worlds – the stories the studio tells, the concepts its creators play with. There are many studios that do action well, but few that can deliver well-written stories grounded in odd concepts. in the CrossfireX, Remedy appears to have erased its identity and merely delivered what so many studios are already capable of.
I have very little to say about the characters. Even the voice acting felt the end, like a badly dubbed B-class action movie. In fact, the story was often B-class schlock. That doesn’t necessarily have to be synonymous with “bad” — look how Remedy covered Stephen King’s campy horror Alan Wake and made it a truly chilling and intriguing tale – with memorable characters, locations and clever ideas. Genre defines no borders. But everything feels wrong here. If you decide to play this just because of the Remedy name, don’t expect the Remedy pedigree to go with it.
CrossfireX was released on February 10th on Xbox One and Xbox Series X via Game Pass. The game has been verified on Xbox with a pre-release download code provided by Smilegate Entertainment. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. you can find For more information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy, click here.