Why Crackdown 3 is taking so long to hit shelves is now a bit clearer.

In an interview with Polygon, head of Xbox Matt Booty said that only Sumo Digital is working on the project now. When Crackdown 3 was first announced back at E3 2014, Sumo was one of three studios handling development duties - the maker of the first two games Reagent Games was involved, as was Cloudgine.

The latter was recently purchased by Epic Games, while Reagent appears to have quietly been shut down, or at the very least, downsized. Polygon reports that only three people are listed as working at the company on LinkedIn.

“We’re just working with Sumo [Digital] right now,” said Booty.

“That’s our main development partner. And as you know, I’m sure you know, any game has got a number of folks that come in to help us with content and some development, but Sumo’s our main ... Sumo is our main partner on Crackdown.”

The loss of Cloudgine is keenly noticed, too. Originally this cloud tech was meant to be power some ambitious destruction physics in the game, but in the most recent trailer at E3, the seemed to either be missing, or severely downsized.

“You know, we’re super lucky as part of Microsoft that we get to work so closely with the Xbox platform team, that the cloud shows up in all of our games in pretty exciting ways," Booty said.

"Over time, things will evolve and I can’t really speak to what’s in the game, but it’s — these days with a big game like that, we’re very fortunate to have access to industry-leading cloud technology.”

He continued: “You know, I’m not going to get into the actual technical breakdown. Let’s just say that we’ve got access to a great infrastructure, and the game’s got some great tech in it, and we’re going to put those two together in the way that makes the most sense.”