The Crew Is Resurrected. Ubisoft Shut Down Servers, but Fans Are on Track to Recreate Entire Game
Fans affiliated with the group The Crew Unlimited are striving to revive the Ivory Tower studio's game, whose servers were shut down several months ago. That they are doing well is evidenced by gameplay uploaded online yesterday.
Almost three months have passed since The Crew servers were shut down. The open-world racing game from Ivory Tower studio became unplayable on March 31, nearly a decade after its release. However, prior to that happening - i.e. as soon as Ubisoft announced the intention to abandon the game, a group of fans started working hard to safeguard this cherished title for future generations.
The goal of The Crew Unlimited project is to replicate the entire original content, which isn't an easy task given that many game systems operated on the server, and to provide it in an offline version. The creators released a gameplay recording yesterday, which indicates that they have made great progress, and the realization of their intended goal is closer rather than further away. The video shows a fully functional game - at least in free ride mode.
However, ambitious modders aren't willing to stop at offline play. They also plan to develop a server emulator that would allow players to join together in teams - i.e. continue using The Crew's flagship online features.
Besides, breaking free from Ubisoft's services means opening the game to mods. Fans are already making plans for small adjustments to mechanics they deem less successful (such as Smart Loot), and in the future, they may be able to achieve significant accomplishments. Who knows, maybe someday we will see a repeat of the history of Test Drive Unlimited, where, for example, a ton of content was added through the Platinum gigamode.
Unfortunately, as you probably know, Ubisoft has put a huge obstacle in the way of players who would like to return to The Crew in the offline version. Shortly after the servers were shut down, the French corporation began deactivating license keys for "owners" of the game, making it impossible to reinstall the game. All this caused a huge storm on the Internet and provoked a movement to stop publishers from killing games - the action is still ongoing, as we recently talked about with its initiator.
