Perhaps still stinging from the unexpectedly ferocious reaction to its decision to bring The Crew to a sudden, unwanted stop, Ubisoft announced today that offline modes are being developed for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest.
"We heard your concerns about access to The Crew games," Ubisoft said via TheCrewGame on Twitter. "Today, we want to express our commitment to the future of The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. We can confirm an offline mode to ensure long term access to both titles, stay tuned for more news in the next months."
We heard your concerns about access to The Crew gamesToday, we want to express our commitment to the future of The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. We can confirm an offline mode to ensure long term access to both titles, stay tuned for more news in the next months. pic.twitter.com/KDlz8h09OTSeptember 10, 2024
The Crew 2 is six years old and wasn't great at launch but has enjoyed years of follow-on support; The Crew Motorfest is much newer yet has a much smaller player base on Steam, possibly because it spent more than six months as an Epic Games Store (and Ubisoft Store) exclusive. Whatever the case, there's not what you'd call a huge community of players out there for either game.
But the decision to commit to offline modes for both games probably isn't driven solely by player numbers, but rather emerges from the unpleasantness (and potential future unpleasantness) sparked by the shutdown of the original Crew earlier this year. Ubisoft delisted The Crew in December 2023 and rendered it unplayable as of April 1, 2024, saying the move was necessitated by "server infrastructure and licensing constraints."
But rather than quietly accepting that boilerplate justification as Ubisoft presumably expected, The Crew fans pushed back hard, launching a "Stop Killing Games" initiative that seems more serious and well-considered than the name might at first suggest. A petition to the European Union hasn't yet attracted the one million signatures required to move it forward for possible adoption as law, but it has attracted 350,000 signatures in less than two months, and that's not nothing.
There's more than just blowback from The Crew community: Ubisoft is also facing external pressure arising from a years-long malaise driven by numerous game delays, cancellations, and underperformance from released games. That's resulted in a long, slow slump in the company's share price, which now sits at a 10-year low, and while bringing offline modes to a couple racing games isn't going to turn that around, Ubisoft needs whatever PR wins it can get right now. You have to start somewhere, right?
A time frame for the addition of offline support for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest wasn't provided, nor did Ubisoft say whether it has similar plans for The Crew, the game that caused all this trouble in the first place. I've reached out to ask if a Crew comeback is in the works, and will update if I receive a reply.
One more thing, since we're here: If Ubisoft's new commitment to the future of The Crew 2 has you curious, this is a great time to pick it up—it's currently on sale for just $1 on Steam. That's 98% off the regular price, and the lowest it's ever been on the platform. A big, heavily-updated, and "very positive" rated arcade racing game for just a buck? That's a real deal.
