Crossfire: Legion is the future of the RTS as it was in 1999
Can I get a ‘woop woop’, or at least a ‘wololo’, for the spin-off strategy game? The Ensemble Studios swansong that was Halo Wars, an RTS so streamlined it was aerodynamic. The ballistic ballet of Gears Tactics, which piled extra biceps atop XCOM’s shoulders. Even when money has moved through the membrane in the opposite direction, it has resulted in projects that were - let’s not overstate this - endearingly experimental. Can I get an understanding nod for Command & Conquer: Renegade?
The strangeness of Crossfire: Legion’s situation is that you might not recognise it as a spin-off at all. That’s because the series is a big old blind spot for the Western world. Crossfire is an enormously successful Korean FPS that bears more than a passing resemblance to Counter-Strike - all right angles, assault weapons, and de_dust2 - but dwarfs even Steam’s most popular game for player numbers. With 690 million participants across 80 countries, it’s the biggest online FPS in the world. In China, where the game is a major cultural force, a coming-of-age television drama about two young Crossfire players has been watched 1.8 billion times. Bridger-what? Geralt of Where? The upshot of all that success is that Crossfire radiates money, and some of it is now funding new games from prestigious Western developers. Remedy is working on a campaign FPS in the classic COD style. And Blackbird Interactive is building an RTS named Legion.