The Crew @ EGX

This time last year, it looked like we would be inundated with racing games to choose from. However, due to delays, that deluge appears to have simply been postponed to the next few weeks. Forza Horizon 2 and DriveClub are almost upon us, providing the all-important exclusive titles ahead of the even-more-important end-of-year sales. Project CARS, in the meantime, looks to fill the sim-racer role in November.

So where does that leave Ivory Tower’s massive open-world social racer, The Crew? After my playtime with it at EGX (and during the ongoing closed beta), I anticipate a hotly-contested race to the finish.

For the uninitiated, The Crew is Ubisoft’s massively multiplayer online driving game set in the United States. Normally, that would mean set in New York or Chicago or San Francisco – but The Crew actually takes place in the entirety of the US. While the map is not to scale, it is still an unprecedented undertaking tying together the various cities with smaller towns, using elongated highways to string everything together – and that doesn’t include all of the off-road areas too.

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There is a slimline narrative to the game too. You play a talented but arrogant street racer. Your brother leads the 5-10 gang, made up of similarly-minded racers, and is desperate for you to get your act together and join the group. However, before he can fully convince you, he is gunned down by a rival and you get framed for his murder.

The game properly kicks off when you are recruited by the FBI to infiltrate the gang as their activities have become more dangerous. You are also tasked with rooting out the corrupt police who help them. In order to help you, you are given some starting funds and a crew to help you out.

While the story is barely there, at least in the early preview, it serves its purpose of setting up the world. You can then take on point-to-point and circuit races to raise cash, complete missions for 5-10 bosses and attempting to bring your brother’s killers to justice.

The multiplayer side of things offers some of the same elements you would expect to see in an RPG – with levelling-up and improving the specs of your car and abilities a priority. Completing various missions increases the experience you earn, but performing various stunts or tasks also adds to this figure.

In comparison to the other titles I mentioned before, The Crew’s handling follows the arcade racer model over the sim-like handling of Project CARS. If I were to try to find its closest relative, in terms of controls, I would have to say it resembles Driver: San Francisco – which is no bad thing as it happens to be one of my favourite driving games of the last generation.

Similar to the handling, The Crew’s visuals are also more arcade-focussed. Games like DriveClub and Forza put a lot of effort into making their environments and cars look as realistic as possible. Ivory Tower seem to have put a lot of effort into the visual fidelity of their game too but the focus appears to be more on the sense of speed than the pixel numbers of the car models.

That is not to say the game is a slouch in the aesthetic department. It looks good – especially when you enter the game’s expensive car customisation mode. The car model explodes into its various parts and the detail on each of the cars modelled is impressive. The various customisation packs range from performance-enhancing changes to complete overhauls to the car’s bodywork to suit off-road racing.

The ‘connected world’ The Crew is going for resembles games like Destiny, and like Bungie’s latest, you can play with friends or alone. You might decide to solely play with friends, but equally going it alone or forsaking the missions to go on long road trips across the vast continent is just as valid a pursuit.

The Crew offers a level of freedom unheard of outside of the RPG genre. Whether it is a success, with multiple other titles vying for attention at the same time has yet to be seen but Ivory Tower have given it their best shot. The next few weeks will be exciting for driving game fans.

Tags: Ivory Tower, PC, PlayStation 4, Reflections, The Crew, Ubisoft, Xbox 360, Xbox One