Crimson Dragon[c] is a rail shooter primarily developed by Grounding Inc. and published by Microsoft Studios as an Xbox One launch title.

The gameplay features the player moving an aiming reticle and shooting enemies while the dragon flies through 3D environments either on a fixed track or freely within arena-like zones.

Several Panzer Dragoon staff worked on the game including director Yukio Futatsugi, designer Tomohiro Kondo, artist Manabu Kusunoki, and composer Saori Kobayashi.

A spin-off tying into the narrative, Crimson Dragon: Side Story, was developed by Grounding and released in 2012 for Windows Phone.

[6] Clearing a stage rewards in-game currency and experience points, along with items collected during gameplay such as revival gems and food which can be used to raise the dragon between missions.

[2][8][10] The game includes asynchronous cooperative play through Xbox Live, allowing players to hire each others' dragons and share in the rewards from each mission.

During his missions, the protagonist discovers the original and prohibited Amara colony ruins, with Sana shielding him from government retribution and warning him to forget about it.

In contrast, Cadmus sends the protagonist on missions surrounding the ruins, including finding an ancient body identified as a still-living Seeker.

Once the protagonist defeats White Phantom, they see a vision through a portal in Amara, revealing that Draco has become part of Earth's Crimsonscale experiments to discover immortality.

With each failure of Crimsonscale to produce perfect immortality, Earth's government reset Draco using alien technology discovered on the planet to perform a multiverse transference that wipes out the original population.

Crimson Dragon was directed by Yukio Futatsugi, noted for his work on the Panzer Dragoon series and Phantom Dust.

[25][26] Following E3 2012, both in response to negative feedback around the Kinect-only controls and to bolster the launch line-up of the in-production Xbox One, Microsoft decided to shift the game onto the new console.

[34] The music of Crimson Dragon was created by Panzer Dragoon composer Saori Kobayashi, with Jeremy Garren of Pyramind Studio arranging her score and adding tracks.

[20][34] A spin-off project for Windows Phone, Crimson Dragon: Side Story, was developed by Grounding Inc. and published by Microsoft Studios on 12 September 2012.

[35] Side Story was based on the concept of a shooter for Windows Phone that would promote on the 360 release, sharing characters with the main game.

[31] The narrative of Side Story follows Sana on a secret assignment from the New Amara government, where she uses a White Reaver to track the infection path of Crimsonscale carrier Dark Phantom.

Her narration further details Crimsonscale's effects, granting a form of immortality to people at the cost of crippling deformity, with her father being one of its victims.

Cadmus pursues Sana at one point, hinting at the cycle Draco is trapped in, and she discovers that the White Reavers are ancient humans converted into dragon-like carriers by Crimsonscale.

[52] Writing for the UK edition of Official Xbox Magazine, Jon Blyth praised the gameplay and art design, but faulted the game's microtransactions, RPG elements, and short length.

[54] Rob Slusser of GameTrailers enjoyed the Kinect implementation, but felt there was not enough content or polish for the game to gather more than a cult following.

[49] GamesRadar's Ryan Taljonick praised the on-rails sections and graphic design, but faulted the free roaming controls and lack of mission variety.

[11] Jose Otero of IGN felt that the open levels created control issues compared to the rail shooter sections, while also criticizing the game's graphics and AI-companions.

[53] Peter Brown, writing for GameSpot, praised the later levels for their design and challenge, but highlighted the camera controls as off-putting alongside the high difficulty.