The Crew Motorfest has now launched and is live across all available platforms.
The Crew Motorfest is playable on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, on Windows, via Ubisoft Connect and Epic Games Store, and streaming, on Amazon Luna.
The Crew Motorfest is the latest game in the franchise from French studio Ubisoft Ivory Tower. We had in fact reported a leak, a few days before its official reveal. Part of that leak was the rumor that this was originally intended to be The Crew 2 DLC, and much like Modern Warfare III, it was spun off into its own game.
But there’s some other interesting elements to this as well. This game shrinks the scale from the previous games, setting it in a smaller version of O’ahu, the third largest island in Hawaii. Old fans had pointed out that many of the staff in Ubisoft Ivory Tower had previously worked on Test Drive Unlimited and Test Drive Unlimited 2. Both Test Drive Unlimited games also happen to be set in O’ahu.
Aside from the tropical setting, The Crew Motorfest is themed around a festival. The festival racing will allow you to switch vehicles, from cars, to planes, and boats. It all promises to be at least a modest graphical showcase, aside from providing even more of Ubisoft Ivory Tower’s unique flavor of racing.
The Crew Motorfest does take many cues from The Crew 2. And so, it will still be an always online game, and it will also feature a persistent open world, unlike the first game.
The Crew Motorfest was placed in that odd position of coming out it one of the biggest years for video games. While racing games have a passionate niche fanbase, its particular release today carries a real risk that it could get lost in the seas of other more high profile games.
In particular, Starfield’s release from earlier this month still carries some serious momentum. It’s proven popular enough to raise sales of the Xbox Series consoles themselves, and that makes it a real threat to other new games.
Also in The Crew Motorfest’s headlights is Lies of P, the upcoming action game taking a lot of inspiration from the Soulsborne games, and produced by Korean studio Round 8. It is no so much that there are a lot of Lies of P or Starfield gamers who would have bought The Crew Motorfest. Rather, Ubisoft’s concern would be that the racing fans who would have been interested may not know this game is coming out today.
There’s also the matter of the coming release of Forza Motorsport next month. It does seem like Ubisoft sought to avoid that game, so at least racing fans won’t feel like they have to choose. Maybe things will turn out OK for this game, if not right now, in a few weeks’ time.
