Crossout Gamescom Trailer Shows Insane Customization And Action

I liked the sound of Crossout when Gaijin Entertainment first announced it back in May. As a former Car Wars player who customized hundreds of cars and engaged in massive, metal-crunching duels, the notion of customizing your own wheeled death machine in an MMO sounded great right from the start.

"Don't get too excited, Jason," that voice in my head said. "It'll probably be like War Thunder and similar games where 'customization' means choosing between a gun that does X damage and costs Y versus a gun that does 1.2X damage and costs 1.3Y or something minor like that."

The first 80 seconds of the Crossout Gamescom trailer changed all that. It starts with a basic truck chassis, to which is added tires (duh), armor, weapons, and a bunch of stuff I don't even know what purpose it serves, all placed on the vehicle wherever the hell the designer likes it and not in pre-determined "slots." It looks to have an almost Space Engineers/Kerbal Space Program level of available stuff and freedom to place it as you choose.

"But how does it play?" Well, that's the rest of the video, and it looks damn good. Gunfire, explosions, collisions, damage to components, it's all there. It also looks like you can recruit various crew members to help you craft new equipment. Then you can strip it all down and start over again.

If I have one beef, it'd be that destroyed vehicles explode into a shower of debris; I'd love for some kind of burning wreck to remain that serves as a collision hazard, or possibly cover. Destroyed tanks in War Thunder work that way, so it seems like Gaijin could do the same here.

Still, for an alpha video, it's all kinds of awesome, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.