"Crossout is incredibly fun, looks fantastic, and considering its age is still decently active, however it is also horrendously pay-to-win, with the endgame almost entirely dominated by whales."
It has been almost a decade since the start of Crossout’s closed beta (April 5, 2016), so something must be said for the developers’ dedication to the game, and the fact that they have managed to maintain an active community for so long.
While Crossout does not enjoy the benefits of full crossplay support, and cross progression does not exist in any form, it has managed to stay relatively active on all platforms due to the inclusion of bots and player drop-in, which results in short wait times even in remote regions at unfriendly hours.
While the bots are not very skilled, and can be easily dispatched by all but the worst of players, letting players feel like a “badass” as they rack up kill after kill is a great way to keep them engaged, and more importantly, tempt them to open their wallets, which they will need to do often once the honeymoon period is over and they are pitted against real players, many of which are veterans with vastly more powerful vehicles, often purchased almost entirely with real-world money.
As someone who genuinely enjoys Crossout’s setting, gameplay loop, and building mechanics, it saddens me to say that it is indeed a pay-to-win hellscape, and while players can spend hundreds of hours a month to remain “competitive” and play for free, without question paying players have a massive advantage over free players, and even those who have spent less than they have.
I have personally witnessed this many times, in which I had the drop on the enemy, engaged first, landed more shots, and was soundly defeated, only to see that I had lost to a player using items purchased from the store which were of vastly higher quality than anything I could have earned in anything short of an absurd amount of time.
While Crossout is a vehicular game, and you cannot see other players, NPCs, or even yourself in-game, that has not stopped the developers from incorporating scantily clad women into marketing and in-game art.
While some may dismiss this as a non-issue, I feel strongly that making content or characters purely to titillate is wrong, and while there is a time and place for nudity in games, reducing the role of half of the human race to eye candy is offensive, and for those who are prone to acting on their lust, dangerous.
Thankfully, Crossout is not the most egregious offender in this regard, and there are more female characters who wear practical clothing than those who dress like “naughty cosplay girls”, unlike titles such as Mecha Break ↪ and The First Descendant ↪, In which the vast majority of female characters wear tight or revealing clothing.
Crossout is an free-to-play action game developed by Targem Games and published by Gaijin Entertainment, it released on 5 April 2016, and is available on PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
Crossout supports:
Crossout offers the following matchmaking options:
The Crossout in-game store sells:
Crossout supports the following peripherals:
Crossout is rated PEGI 12+ and contains:
I really like playing Crossout. The combat is fun, the building mechanics are solid, and the gameplay loop is fast-paced and enjoyable, but with some builds costing as much as a AAA game, I cannot bring myself to overly recommend it, despite there still being some fun to be had for those who intend to just mess about in PvE and the lower levels of competitive play.
That said, if you are prone to impulse buying or have a weakness for excessive spending in an effort to remain competitive, I would strongly recommend giving Crossout a hard pass.
We found Crossout to be a good game, meaning it is likely to be enjoyable for most players, despite having a few areas that could be improved upon.
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