True Crime: New York City is a 2005 open world action-adventure video game developed by Luxoflux for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. It was ported to Microsoft Windows by Aspyr,[7] and to mobile by Hands-On Mobile.[8] It was published on all systems by Activision. The PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube versions were released in November 2005, the PC version in March 2006, and the mobile version in March 2007. It is the second entry in the True Crime franchise, after the 2003 True Crime: Streets of LA.
The game tells the story of Marcus Reed, a former New York City gang member turned police officer. On his first night on the job after receiving a promotion to detective in the Organized Crime Unit, Reed witnesses the death of his mentor. Helped by an FBI agent who is investigating a mole in the OCU, Reed sets about finding out who killed his friend and bringing down the mole. The game features a 25-square-mile (65 km2) recreation of the borough of Manhattan, with most street names, major landmarks and highways reproduced with GPS accuracy.
New York City received mixed reviews, with reviewers citing numerous technical and graphical glitches, leading many to speculate the final stages of development had been rushed. The game was also a commercial failure, selling only 72,000 units across all platforms in its first two weeks of release in North America, much less than Streets of LA. Its lackluster critical response and poor sales figures partially contributed to the abandonment of the True Crime franchise. Originally intended as the first of a two-part series set in New York and featuring Marcus Reed, after the game’s poor performance, Activision scrapped the direct sequel and put plans for future True Crime games on hold. In 2007, they hired United Front Games to develop an open world game set in Hong Kong. By 2009, this game had become True Crime: Hong Kong. However, in 2011, the game was canceled. The publishing rights were picked up by Square Enix several months later, and True Crime: Hong Kong was ultimately released as Sleeping Dogs, which has no connection to the True Crime series. In 2014, Activision dropped the True Crime trademark completely.
