The Last Days of The Crew

Thank you so much mr revo for having me, it was a lot of fun to have that coast to coast roadtrip while yapping about the game!

As someone who loved The Crew 1, Ubisoft can legit go to hell.

Ubisoft: "You will own nothing. Now give us that subscription fee." Honestly, done with buying games from bigger companies. Indie and AA seem to be the way at this point. It's such a shame that people that love these games get the brunt of the worst of this. I really hope something breaks soon on this current position in gaming. Thanks for the look into this community, Revo. <3

In mid 2016 I was given a copy of the crew and after a few days of playing it made me think about something personal. My father had passed away a few months prior and driving around the open world in the game made me think about when him and I drove cross country in a moving truck when I was 12. My mother and sisters flew out ahead of us leaving us behind to finish packing before taking the long trip from Fresno California to Baltimore Maryland. I had found the same map we used to plot our road trip not long after he passed away and told myself someday I'll make that drive again. My life was a mess and I knew that I may not ever get the chance to really take that trip so I decided to do it in the crew. Oddly enough while Fresno was on the map but Baltimore wasn't so I recreated the drive as best I could and decided to end it in Washington DC. One night I turned off all the lights, cranked up the sound, sparked a joint, booted up the game and played a mix of the songs that we listen to during the 3 days we spent driving cross country. It was extremely cathartic for me to just drive that night. I took my time and stopped at the towns that we had marked off on the map then did my best to remember what we did during those stops. After a few long hours I felt at peace. I needed that night with the crew and my thoughts. It's sad to see this game get killed off like this, especially because the second one is just a complete downgrade in every aspect imaginable. I hope #stopkillinggames pulls off a hail Mary and brings this game back to life. It doesn't even need to be online. This game may not have been the greatest racing or driving game ever made but it had a lot of hard work put into it to make it look and feel unique while being an enjoyable experience. More importantly it was something special to me.

You should add a link to Stop Killing Games in the description. If you don't know of it already, there's a movement started by Ross Scott to try and take legal action in order to stop companies from making games like The Crew completely unplayable when they drop support and at least provide the documentation, tools and/or infrastructure so the community could get the game running again without jumping through too many hoops. Part of the movement's strategy actually centers around The Crew as a game, as it's publisher Ubisoft is a French company and France is very pro-consumer in its laws, and also people who aren't actually even from France can make a complaint to their customer rights agency. All of the instructions to do this are on the Stop Killing Games site. Considering there's likely a decent number of The Crew owners who will be watching this, it could lend a big hand to the movement.

I really REALLY regret not giving the original the crew the attention it deserved.. tried the crew 2 twice but the game felt dead, i couldnt get myself to finish the "campaign".... but atleast i was able to record my last drive on the day the game got destroyed, one last goodbye. sorry The crew.

This game was 10x better than The Crew 2 for me. Mainly because the story/ campaign for the first game was fucking awesome and The Crew 2 lacked it. The Crew engaged me immediately with its cool, emotional, high-stakes, engaging story. I wanted to get revenge, clear my name and explore this world of criminals and underground street races. Having the campaign take you on a guided tour around the US was really cool too, because it meant I was encouraged to explore the whole of the game's US over time in a guided way that was driven by the story in the background. The progressive unlocks of the different car types and cars gave it a very unique, but structured and highly rewarding progression system. This is mirrored in the story where you climb the street-racing gang ranks. I think a lot of my issue with the second one was the vibe. You can see it in the game cover arts: For The Crew 1, it's black, gritty and you've got the whole US at your feet. For The Crew 2, it's bright white, it's all vivid and sanitised; it's not about going across the US or driving with others. It's about the different vehicles and the locations, but only in the context of racing. I think that's what annoyed me with The Crew 2: it was a racing game, not a driving game. The intro felt obnoxious and like the exact opposite of the first game. You have to customise a character and then go through a really scripted race where an announcer is screaming how cool everything is and how many likes you're getting in your ear. All before being given any reason to actually care about your character or anything in the world. The ONLY bit of story in The Crew 2 is: "Your unnamed character wants to become a racing icon by winning in all the different kinds of races. Go do that." How is that remotely compelling? Why should I want to win any of these races? So that generic Mr/ Mrs __________ can be famous? Who cares? Start the game with your character crashing or losing a loved one or being bullied or struggling financially. Put some emotion in there that the audience can relate to and feel. Have an actual character with an actual story and give it some weight. Be interesting instead of PAINFULLY generic. This lack of stakes and sanitisation carries over to the races, too. The few races I did do felt really boxed in in The Crew 2 like I was stuck on a path. I didn't really feel like I wanted to win, just that I was there. I think it reflects a desire to give the game a wider appeal, it feels like the kind of decision that higher-ups at Ubi might've made as it just misses what made the first one so fun. Maybe the design team just wanted to take it in a new direction and contrast with the first one, but they still could've had an actual story. Ultimately, the addition of planes and boats and bikes was not enough to stave off my disappointment from the tonal shift and complete lack of story. Other than the map, which felt weirdly locked off to me, a lot of the stuff I loved about the original was gone. I probably played about with the switching mechanic for 1-2 hours and then stopped playing; which was nothing compared to the literal days I spent playing The Crew. Since The Crew 2 released, I've played The Crew 1 more, because the second one just isn't as fun.

The thing about this game is that it was lukewarm at first, but once we saw TC2 and Motorfest, we realized how good we had it with the first game. TC2 felt too vibrant and like a Horizon clone, and they butchered the map, making it feel more repetitive, less detailed, and even going so far as to remove existing landmarks and towns.

I was there. On the last day of the crew, i streamed for 3 hours on twitch. Replayed the final Race and Just went from eastcoast to west coast. The feels i had for this game while cruising through The outskirts of chicago at night in the rain in my Pagani Huayra while listening To 'The Kills-Baby Says' just jept reminding me that this would be all gone the next day. And then it was gone. I have since taken my time and recreated all sorts of paintjobs From The Crew In Forza Horizon 5 but the feels will never be the same again.

The other thing too is the game used to feel even more like the US, and everywhere felt more unique, before the Wild Run expansion came out. It broke a lot of graphics and butchered many other things. But with PBR in Wild Run, they didn't adapt all the materials to it lol. With pre-WR, each region had its own weather, lighting, and color correction. Each region actually FELT different. I can't say the same for WR.

Make sure to check out The Crew Unlimited Discord. When the game is playable again, you'll find it first there. They're also a lovely lot: discord.com/invite/gUczTkphGE

This is the only video game to feature my home town and I would always boot it up if I got bored of playing my other games. Great vid dude, subbed :)

i Hate the direction they took the crew 2, i despise it so much, i dont want to get followers, i dont want to be famous. i want to be low key, illegal street racing and running from the cops

Side note: TC1 was the only crew game that you could play on Linux/SteamOS systems (blame Ubisoft for not toggling a switch in Battleye). Otherwise awesome Video! Yours truly, Microwave Man

I know the video has only been out for an hour but really? only 340 views?? This deserves so much more!

Awesome video. The Crew was the first game I followed from its announcement up to its release, and also to its death. The concept it had going was too much for 10-year-old me to not obssess over it and be excited about any announcements related it, and the fact I can't play it anymore bums me out to no end, especially since the sequels suck. A lot of what you said is pretty much how I've been feeling about racing games - my favorite genre - for years now. The festival shtick was done well in Horizon 1 but it never lived up to that onwards as much as Horizon 2 may be my favorite of them all. This trend spreading to every other franchise also doesn't help, though I'm glad NFS hasn't bowed to it yet. The worst part is that it's hard to talk about this stuff when it comes to racing games as most people who aren't into the niche just see it as the kind game you hop on to drive a car and nothing more. It's not hard to be laughed at for expecting depth in a racing games nowadays.

the crew 1 will always have a special place in my heart, i loved this game so much, when i beta test it i played like 45h in one weekend 😅 my birth date is the december 2nd and i remember play it officially during my birthday with friends, and just drive around for hours and never get bored. i really hope that the tdu group will end up with something and bring back tc1 to life! Awesome video btw!

Back then, 9 years ago, I REALLY want to play this game, but all I can do is just watch Youtube playthrough of it. Then time passed, I slowly forgotten about it... until today. Guess I'll never experience this game now. Hopefully the folks at The crew unlimited community find a way to revive it back some how.

25:06 only game to do the “car fest” aesthetic right is how NFS ProStreet did it because the way to do it is to make everything look like Gridlife or Gatebil but bigger. an irl “car fest” isn’t everyone having fifteen pristine supercars, it’s groups and teams and individuals bringing whatever they built as a showcase of performance, innovation, or just to have a good time putting down some solid runs. point being, it’s gotta be gritty. people shit the transmission at the line sometimes. someone might pop their tires in the burnout box. drift cars run bash bars and quick release bumpers because a good run means leaving a little paint on the concrete sometimes. put the grit back into car festivals!!! also shoutout motorstorm.

Thank you Revo for documenting and showcasing the games more miniscule details and information, as well as veering into other relevant topics such as art direction differences and the research effort made by the development team to create the game environment, inhabitant ands the map itself and giving significantly more insight into the game for the average viewer who may not know too much about topics discussed at hand. Have a good one and go on a well deserved break for your production of such a master craft video on YouTube. -fiswet (and thank you for including my soccer mom suv joke in the video aswell.)