Hands on with The Crew Motorfest - Preview
Ahead of Ubisoft Forward, I was invited to go hands on with The Crew Motorfest, the third entry in their racing series. For the first time the series is leaving the United States of America, well at least the mainland as the game is set in Hawaii. There have been a few racing games set there before, but with The Crew, the freedom to race around in almost anything with an engine means it should be fun, so did I have fun in my hands on?
The short answer is yes, the longer answer is that I have questions. Before I raise questions, lets talk about what the game is, The Crew Motorfest is the next chapter of The Crew series. In these games recreations of known locations, previously the entire continental USA, gave players the freedom to drive to wherever they like. While the first game tried to put a story into the game, the second game made it all about becoming the best racer around. The Crew 2 was also the one that introduced a lot more variety, throwing in the ability to swap from a car to a plane to a boat and back again, all without having to pause the game. All that was at launch though and over the past 5 years, the team at Ivory Tower have introduced new challenges, story beats and of course cars and now that brings us now.
The Crew Motorfest is set in Hawaii and is aiming to be the ultimate playground for car lovers and yes, before I get any further, if you have a collection of cars from The Crew 2, you can import them into The Crew Motorfest. While the island of O‘ahu will be available for you to drive around, the game is setting up progression a little differently this time around. The game will offer up playlists, thematic campaigns that will literally drop you into everything to do with its theme. One such theme is Vintage Garage, which as you might have guessed is all about classic cars. While the game is set in the modern day, when you jump into this playlist, you lose modern day touches and by that I mean no GPS and no NOS. There is a large range of playlists, from Made in Japan to American Muscle and even more specific like 911 Legacy, I did learn of a playlist called Ocean N Sky, but sadly I didn’t see anything about planes returning to the game.
With the intro out of the way it was time to race and that is where the games opening came into play. Much like the Forza Horizon series, The Crew Motorfest provided a sample of events to come and the cars that they contain. This let me experience a few additional ones like racing around a closed track or taking a 4WD off road, then up and down mountains. These events are just samples, in fact you can watch the footage below to see how the various sample events played out, including my mediocre driving at times.
Thankfully I was able to jump into any of the available playlists and as I was more keen on how the handling played out, I opted for Made in Japan, which drenched the city streets and hillsides in neon and put me behind the wheel of some iconic Japanese cars. Obviously I didn’t go through the character creator or choose my own starting car, but rather was dropped into the game with a few presets enabled, but the game will let you do that when it releases. Because my character was preset and I jumped into the game, there were some characters talking to me during my races in the Made in Japan playlist, that left me a little confused, but it did make me excited to learn more about them. The first race that I jumped into was the first in the playlist, so they were being friendly, imparting a little knowledge as we raced. The second of the races was much later in the playlist, the second last event from a list of 10 or so and they were much more open to dishing out some trash talking this time.
Across the sample events and the Made in Japan, I got a good feeling about how each of the playlists provides a different experience. When racing in the track cars, similar to a Formula 1 vehicle, everything was about sticking to the line and the car felt like it was meant to be there. When I was bouncing all over the place across the fields and jungles of Hawaii, the car felt powerful but also heavy and even the vintage cars felt different, slower and bulkier. A lot of The Crew 2’s variety came in the different ways of getting around, ie planes vs cars, so to feel such vast differences, this early on in the game is a welcome surprise.
While my hands on wasn’t that long, there is no denying that I got strong feelings of Forza Horizon here, perhaps with a little Test Drive Unlimited thrown in for good measure. Not that pulling inspiration from other games is a bad thing, but one of the biggest draws of The Crew and The Crew 2 was its insane map size and in the sequel the sheer number of ways you can get around. In the footage above you can see other racers on bikes and even in the key art they are there, so that might expand things out. If The Crew Motorfest is all about the car and I suspect it is, then it really needs to be more than a Forza Horizon inspired game. Because my time with the game was so limited, I do hope there is more I have yet to see and while I am down to play it, whatever it has to offer, I am a little on the cautious side right now.
The Crew Motorfest will arrive on September 14th for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. For PC players the game will be available either through the Epic Games Store or Ubisoft Connect and for members of the Ubisoft+ program, the game is included there.
