There is a whole lot of work done by Ivory Tower to make sure The Crew is a convenient experience for players, though. Everything is easy to get into, to figure out, and to manipulate from the UI to the cars themselves. While this fictional USA is a completely open world that pulls in players and populates the landmass as you go, you can also instantly travel anywhere you’ve previously been to on the map. So while you’ll initially have to explore an area to uncover the fog of war, you’ll then be able to teleport anywhere with just the click of a button. This is especially useful for knocking out missions and challenges without having to waste too much time getting somewhere.
Don’t let that fool you though, there’s still a lot of exploration to be had in The Crew. Following the Ubisoft Open World Formula (patent pending), tons of challenges are meant to be discovered by roving the roads and the off-roads, there are secret car parts to discover and then assemble into rare vehicles, and hundreds of locations to visit and check off your list for easy XP and cash. It helps that the map is big, but also a tiny pared down version of the continental US. Seeing Route 66 and then moments later being on 8 Mile in Detroit, then in New York is surreal, but also pretty fun. It’s like the old arcade N64 racer Cruisin’ USA grew up and became a much better open world racer.
At the beginning of this article I posited that The Crew may be a sign of things to come for MMOs as a whole. I know that most gamers here might not like racing-themed MMOs, so set the genre off-shoot aside for a second. The mega-server technology employed by The Crew, and also ESO, GW2, now WildStar, previously DCUO, Destiny and of course EVE goes a long way towards solving an issue that plagues pretty much every MMO at some point: server population. The entire game has to be designed around the server tech, and for some games it might not be feasibly due to mechanics (ArcheAge), but I’d wager the management of one large community and being able to let server architecture keep players playing together is a load off the backs of Ivory Tower and Ubisoft, as well as the other MMOs I named.
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It’s a topic for another day, but what if all future MMOs shared the “many online, though you won’t see them all” mentality of games like ESO and the Crew. In a lot of ways, a world feels more alive by having less people in my immediate area, and pairing me up with my actual friends or people who enjoy doing things that I do in-game. It’s far better than having hundreds crammed around a mailbox or standing in a line to tackle an objective. With the right planning, bits of content can be quartered off to allow more people to appear in one place, while the phasing makes sure that areas intended for smaller groups only ever have the right amount.
Enough rambling for now, though. The Crew is so far a very fun not-quite driving playground for the PS4, Xbox One and the PC. I’m playing on the PS4 myself for the review, and you can add me at BillMurphyMMORPG you want to tackle some content together or try some races. The copy was provided by Ubisoft for our review purposes. There are micro-transactions, and they do seem pretty steep in pricing if I’m being honest, though I haven’t felt compelled or forced to use them yet so they might be for the impatient whales among us only. They’re definitely not in your face like many F2P games, rather just there as an option for those who don’t want to save up in-game cash (IE – take their time earning things).
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If you’re on the fence about The Crew, but enjoyed other open world racing games like Test Drive, Need For Speed, or really anything by Ivory Tower or Criterion you’ll likely be happy with your purchase. If however you’re thinking this is your next long-term MMO fix, you might want to hold out for reviews to come in. Me? I’m thinking it’s more of a racing game for those who prefer to be around others in an online world, but not something to replace your “home game”. Our full review will come in another week or two after we’ve had more time to see all The Crew has to offer.
