The Crew Motorfest Is Getting An Offline Mode, And We Should All Be Glad

In April this year, game developer Ubisoft shut down the servers for its 2014 open-world racing title, The Crew. As we said at the time, this wasn’t a massive surprise – game servers get shut down all the time once a title reaches the end of its life. The Crew was a bit different, though, because it was an always-online game. That means that, with no servers, the game was rendered completely unplayable, no matter what format someone owned it in.

This, unsurprisingly, led to a massive backlash. The game’s two successor titles – of which more shortly – were review-bombed, and it spurred a petition to the European Union to prevent practices like this, which currently has almost 350,000 signatures.

Thankfully, it seems Ubisoft has recognised the error of its way (one of the errors, anyway). On The Crew Motorfest’s social channels, a post has appeared confirming that Ubisoft subsidiary developer Ivory Tower is working on an offline mode for both 2018’s The Crew 2 and the latest game in the franchise, The Crew Motorfest, which will ensure long-term access to both games.

The move appears to have been a direct response to the backlash Ubisoft faced for revoking access to the original – an accompanying video featuring Ivory Tower creative director Stéphane Beley begins with him saying “Today, we want to acknowledge that some of you have voiced concerns about access to The Crew games.”

Ubisoft acknowledging that it had vast quantities of egg on its face following the original’s delisting can only be seen as a win. Ultimately, if someone’s paid for a product, a corporation absolutely should not be able to take away access to it at their leisure, especially if there’s no financial compensation for the customer.

It shows one of many limitations that the increasing number of always-online games bring with them. Ubisoft cited “server infrastructure” issues with the original as one of the reasons for shutting it down, something that wouldn’t be an issue if the game was playable offline.

It’s not just that. Yes, it’s 2024, online gaming’s bigger than ever, and the vast majority of us have stable internet connections, but has it crossed anyone’s mind that some of us simply don’t want to play online? I’ve always viewed gaming as a way of kicking back and relaxing without the interference of other people, but an increased emphasis on online features almost always comes at the expense of a less fleshed-out single-player mode. Just look at the neglect Grand Theft Auto V’s story mode has faced compared to GTA Online since its launch or the career modes in the more recent Gran Turismo games that have been a complete shadow of those in the earlier titles (at launch, at least).

That’s before we question stability issues, ably demonstrated last week by the total fiasco that was the early access period of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, another controversially online-only game. People who’d paid up to £80 for the Gold Edition were supposedly getting early access as a benefit but were left with a totally unplayable title – although developer KT Racing has at least announced that affected players will get in-game compensation.

Want me to go on? What about the fact that, for console players, online access often means paying a subscription fee on top of buying consoles and games – themselves not exactly cheap and cheerful.

Video games are more ambitious and technically advanced than ever, but making them online-only is ripping out a big part of the appeal for some of us. I may well be in a minority, but I won’t be picking up TDU Solar Crown for this exact reason. The more recent Crew titles getting offline modes may well be a good thing for old-fashioned players like me, but more importantly, it’s a good thing for our rights as consumers as a whole, and our ability to enjoy a nostalgic look back at titles of old.

Oh, and if you want to take a bit more advantage of this surprising wave of goodwill from Ubisoft, The Crew 2 – a title that got off to a shaky start but has steadily improved over the last six years – is currently 84p on Steam, 80p on the Xbox Store, and 79p on the PlayStation Store. At that price, you can forgive pretty much all of its flaws – you’ll still need an internet connection for now, though.