First The Crew Ends Its 9-year Life; You Have 108 Days Left to Play It
This day had to come at some point - Ubisoft has announced that the first The Crew will stop workin in a dozen weeks or so, along with the shutdown of servers. It's worth playing this original racing sandbox while you have the chance.
Just yesterday, players expressed concern about the heavily online nature of Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, and today Ubisoft shows us the inevitable future of MMO racing games, using the example of the first installment of The Crew.
Ivory Tower announced (on behalf of the French publisher) that its debut title will cease to be playable on March 31, 2024.. On that day, the servers will be shut down - and with them we will lose access to the entire game, which, unlike, for example, theForza Horizon series and the first installments of TDU, does not offer offline gameplay.
With the publication of this announcement, the withdrawal of The Crew from digital distribution has begun. You will no longer buy the game on Steam or Ubisoft's store, although at the time of writing this news it was still available, for example, on Humble Store (unfortunately without any discounts). A better prospect is the secondary market, where it is still easy to get a boxed copy for PC, PS4, XOne or X360.
Why am I mentioning this? Because I would like to encourage you to get acquainted with this item in the last 108 days of its life. Admittedly, giant map of the United States, which made it famous, has been transferred in its entirety to The Crew 2 (and in an improved form), but the prequel is characterized by a few unique features.
First and foremost, it is perhaps the most serious of the whole bunch of open-world car games. Since it fell, so to speak, into the role of a continuator of Driver, the game tells a criminal story about policemen and thieves with racing in the background. The storyline may not be very gripping, but it's noteworthy in that the lead role is played by the ear-pleasing Troy Baker (better known as Joel from The Last of Us).
Besides, the story neatly intertwines with a gradual exploration of the huge map, made all the more enjoyable by the fact that there are, among other things, car wrecks and distinctive U.S. landmarks to discover throughout the open world. As you can see, creating an MMO game didn't stop Ivory Tower from delivering rich single-player gameplay (with optional co-op within the title crews).
It's telling that all of the above elements were cut from The Crew 2, spoiling both progression and exploration. In the first game also the driving model is much better than in the sequel, as is the unique tuning system, where we thoroughly remake cars, transforming models such as the Ford Mustang, Nissan 370Z or Ford F-150 into rally cars, off-roaders, racers or even monster trucks.
In short, first The Crew was a unique game, completely different in character from its successors - and I'm afraid that we won't see anything similar anytime soon (if ever). We certainly don't have much to expect from the progressively more childish installments of Forza Horizon...
