Preview: The Crew

By now everyone would have seen the trailer of the Ubisoft’s upcoming online racing game, “The Crew”. Well, to be honest I saw the trailer of the game when I was standing outside a game shop and I was literally mesmerized by the amount of detailing they showed in the trailer.

I mean which guy on this Earth would not get excited by watching a Chevy Camaro getting transformed in most amazing ways! In the world of racing games, now enters The Crew, a massively multiplayer online driving game set across the entirety of the United States.

It is being developed by Ivory Tower and Ubisoft Reflections and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with a Xbox 360 port being developed by Asobo Studio.

Development:

When the creative director of the game, Julian Gerighty, was questioned about the game’s development and what changes are being made for the game, he replied,

“Two years ago I would have said that on day launch day the content that's on the disc would be everything. Today, though, and this is both a blessing and curse, we can continue working on the game and adding things to it after it has been released and submitted. Yes, you could do that two years ago, but what I'm finding with this console generation is that there's a much bigger opportunity to continue building content far beyond launch day. That's my vision for The Crew, to continue supporting it way down the line. We've negotiated with Ubisoft to keep the team working on the game for a year after release to deliver content packs, new missions and skills and even major features.

The grand scheme of the studio is to provide the players the open world environment in the racing games which includes the option of street racing, off-road hill climbs and takedown challenges in which you must destroy another car within a set time limit. There's even a full recreation of California's Laguna Seca racetrack for you to drive to and compete on.

On 13 August 2014, Ubisoft confirmed that the game will be released on the Xbox 360 the same date as the other versions, with Asobo Studio leading the development and Ivory Tower, Ubisoft Reflections and Ubisoft Shanghai providing support.The reason Ubisoft is porting the game to the Xbox 360 but aren’t doing so for Wii U and Playstation 3 is because the Xbox 360 is closer to "new-gen' technical infrastructure".

Gameplay:

The Crew is an open and persistent world for racing across the United States. It takes an hour and a half to drive from coast to coast in-game. The single-player campaign itself is 20 hours long.

You can decide to concentrate solely on racing your peers, but equally you can ignore that side altogether and instead embark on road trips across the country or work together as a team against an Artificial entity. Players can also participate in mini-games called ‘Skills’ that are peppered across the world. They are triggered when a player drives through them and it involves completing challenges such as weaving through gates and staying as close to a racing line for a period of time.

The multiplayer mode lets a maximum of eight players to compete in races and other game types. There are no in-game loading screens or pauses. Players can also build cars with a tie-in app for iOS and Android. Rest of the driving gameplay will be as similar to that of the Need for Speed games. A video of the Crew is shown below.

What to expect

From whatever I have seen in the trailer and gameplay videos, I can say that this game can be one of the best racing games that can ever come out. Never before in any racing games I have seen precise detailing as in this game.

Moreover, the developers are Ubisoft, so there remains a very few questions about the negative points of the game. The Crew is either going to succeed or fail, in its provision of allowing us to do something different every time we play. It's no easy task, not least given that driving games must adhere to the rigid fundamentals of vehicular interaction: accelerate, brake, reverse and turn.

So keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best of the game. The Crew hits the store on December 2, 2014.