Spencer: "UK sensibility" important for Crackdown 3

In May 2013 Microsoft teased a new entry in the Crackdown series with a tiny image shown during the company's Xbox One reveal event, but we haven't heard anything about it since - despite some hoping it would be announced at Gamescom this week.

We asked Microsoft Studios boss Phil Spencer what's up with Crackdown - after all, it was Microsoft itself that teased the release of the game.

"It was one of my favourite games on Xbox 360," Spencer said. "We did a really nice job on the first one. The second one, I wish we'd have given it more time to build out the complete game."

Spencer then went on to suggest that Crackdown 3 will make heavy use of the Xbox Cloud to fuel multiplayer within a single open world city.

"When I think about the technology we're putting into Xbox One specifically around some of the cloud functionality, there's a real opportunity to take an open world game like Crackdown that allowed you to play with your friends, and roam to all corners of the city and still feel like you're playing together," he said.

"There's a real neat opportunity to bring that genre and game forward onto the new generation."

Crackdown has so far been a franchise developed in Scotland. The first game was built by the now defunct Realtime Worlds (APB), and the second was built by Ruffian Games.

Spencer suggested Microsoft is on the hunt for a new developer to create Crackdown 3 - and that he's keen to keep the series in the UK.

"We want to get the right team," he said. "We want to make sure we have the right creative mastermind behind the title.

"There was a nice UK sensibility to the way the game was developed. I think that's important to the franchise as well."

So who might be making Crackdown 3? With Realtime Worlds no more and Ruffian going on the record earlier this year to say it's not involved, the door is wide open.

Any ideas?