The Crew 2 seems to be a divisive game. Ubisoft Ivory Tower's latest racing propositions offers you a huge in scale map is that tries its best to recreate the real-world look of Unites States, and you will have a chance to wander around using not only cars, but also fast motorcycles, monster trucks, planes, boats and a variety of other vehicles, and nothing will stop you from enjoying the spectacle from inside a detailed cockpit, clicking right stick and being suddenly behind the wheel of a sleek automobile.
According to the first reviews, Ivory Tower has successfully improve upon
The Crew's mistakes, but it's still an imperfect product. Thankfully, the story doesn't feature "brother drama", but is the barest of setups, and it doesn’t curate the experience to offer choice moments on a platter. Sadly, the game doesn't use its main feature, changing vehicles on the fly too much in the actual playthrough.
It looks like in pursuit of doing so many different things right,
The Crew 2 struggles to do anything particularly well. The world may be enormous in size, but it lacks details and life. The fact that it's mainly a single-player experience doesn't help, as
The Crew 2 has no PvP at launch, and provides no compelling reason to team up with friends (it's pretty funny considering the game's title).
Ubisoft has already confirmed plans to support
The Crew 2 with regular updates bringing more content to the title, but it's a shame that the racing doesn't deliver on its ambitious promise at launch, but there's a big chance that Ivory Tower will make it the game it was supposed to be in the near future.
The game does a great job of bringing some try current generation console power to the mix. The textures, shadows, lights, and looks of the cars/environments/other cars is nothing short of stunning. The only shortfall to the visuals are the people on the streets, who look like last generation Sims. When you’re going fast, though, I’m sure you’re not going to stop and enjoy the sights of people, so it’s no biggie. They’re just the visual ‘blah’ of the game. Beyond that, though, The Crew 2 is gorgeous. It’s one of the better-looking games out on the market right now. Not quite the scale of an Assassin’s Creed Origins, but nonetheless pretty and expansive for a driving game. Overall, The Crew 2 is a beautiful follow-up to the first. It packs a lot of punch inside of it and it’s friendly to all types of gamers. The world is still big, the events are great in number, and it just feels like a fun/simple racing game that you want to play on and off for a long time.
The Crew 2 successfully expands the concept of its first installment. Although it does not repeat the mistakes of the first one, it makes others. While the game is varied, fun and gorgeous, some disciplines are not up to the task, the progression and economy systems are not adequate and the exaggerated collisions sometimes play against you.
TrueGaming
There is a lot of variety and plenty of racing types and the open world is gorgeous, but weak character models and no competitive mode at launch hurt this game.
EGM
After two bites at the apple, I think Ivory Tower needs to reconsider something fundamental about its approach. The Crew 2 clearly sees itself in the mold of Destiny or GTA Online, but it can’t muster the wealth of content, the replayability, or the dynamism that keep us going back to those games. Maybe the solution is a huge volume of events—whether developer-authored, community-created, or procedurally generated—so you’re not just repeating races you’ve already seen. Maybe it’s a greater set of tunable difficulty settings that allow you to keep upping the challenge in exchange for improved rewards. Maybe it’s a larger emphasis on multiplayer, including actual PvP. The Crew 2 has no such answers. For all the generosity of its early moments, all it can offer by way of an endgame is a slog through the same content with no end in sight, save the hope that things might improve months down the line. That’s damning in any game, but particularly so given the genre we’re dealing in. A race needs a finish line. Otherwise you’re just driving in circles, forever.
GameInformer
Despite the general lack of inspiration, The Crew 2 still has some fun spots. Interestingly, these were freeform moments outside of the basic races, like hopping sand dunes in a buggy or bouncing from crest to crest in a speedboat. But these flashes are simple and fleeting, and the majority of events and random skill challenges struggle to hold your attention either because of aggressive rubberbanding, lack of difficulty, or uninteresting layouts. I like flying planes, but you can only be asked to do so many barrel rolls before they lose meaning. A checkpoint race that brags you can use your imagination to get from gate-to-gate doesn’t do much good if it funnels you into a single path before a checkpoint. Multiplayer should be a way to fill the gaps, but The Crew 2 has no PvP at launch (only leaderboards), and provides no compelling reason to team up with friends to defeat an event since you’re off in your own areas and don’t need each other to complete the event. Similarly, the game fails to connect players meaningfully or add to its world, despite its title, because you can’t spawn spontaneous in-world challenges, and your friends are not part of a larger organization to bind together all you’ve done. The consequence is even your friends feel like acquaintances barely relevant to the experience.
The first Crew improved dramatically after a series of post-launch updates, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the sequel received the same treatment. But right now this is a full price game released by one of the biggest publishers in the world, and I can’t recommend it in its current state. The lack of multiplayer options is inexcusable and, on a more fundamental level, the driving simply isn’t as fun or refined as it should be. The Crew 2 could be something special, but Ubisoft doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. I’m willing to give it another chance after a few updates, but until then I’ll stick to Forza Horizon 3.
Here’s the thing, though – Ubisoft is the master at salvaging games. I’m putting it in writing: The Crew 2 will be an incredible racer in a year’s time. It’s just not there right now, and it’s a shame. It’s full of potential, packed with a dizzying amount of variety, and you can’t help but be impressed by the massive world you inhabit. Unfortunately, The Crew 2 is just too inconsistent to fully recommend.
Polygon
The Crew 2 is a lovable, thirsty mess, and the sooner you accept it for what it is, the sooner you can appreciate all of the idiosyncrasies that make this racing game unique. The map’s scale is astonishing, and finally delivers on the promise made by its spiritual predecessor Driver: San Francisco: basically, “Google Maps, but a video game.” When you pause and hold the left trigger, the camera pulls away from your vehicle to a view of the city block, then the neighborhood, the city, the state and finally the entire United States. But this isn’t a static map. The world continues to move, the waves crashing against the beach, traffic moving through the intersections, people and animals leisurely passing by your parked vehicle. Yes, the original The Crew was similar, but the sprawl of the States is better appreciated when you have the option to see it by swamp boat, motorbike or farm plane — an option that game lacked.
The newest iteration in the revolutionary franchise, The Crew 2 captures the thrill of the American motorsports spirit in one of the most exhilarating open worlds ever created. Welcome to Motornation, a huge, varied, action-packed, and beautiful playground built for motorsports throughout the entire US of A. Enjoy unrestrained exploration on ground, sea, and sky. From coast to coast, street and pro racers, off-road explorers, and freestylers gather and compete in all kinds of disciplines. Join them in high-octane contests and share every glorious moment with the world.
The Crew 2 is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC NOW!