CRIME OF THE CENTURY

How Creative Assembly evolved from Isolation to getting the gang together for the ultimate (pop-culture heist

-  ALEX SPENCER

Game Hyenas

Developer Creative Assembly

Publisher Sega

Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series

Release 2023

A team of three thieves sneak through a cavernous spaceship. They tangle with the ship's guards, some of them wrapped in mech exoskeletons that resemble the power loader from the end of Aliens, and with other player-controlled squads with similarly felonious intent. Grenades are thrown out that blossom into clumpy walls of goo. Grappling hooks launch the thieves at speed through low-gravity environments. Finally, a safe-cracking device is attached to the vault they're here to rob, lasers drawing a molten line around the door's perimeter. It falls open, revealing the thieves' prize: a cassette with a hand-written label and a doodle of a disco ball. All this for a mixtape?