At Ubisoft’s E3 press conference, creative director Stephane Beley officially unveiled The Crew 2, the followup to the 2014 open world racing game The Crew. The Crew 2 was originally announced in May, but this was the first time we saw it in action.
As with many racing games, The Crew was fixated on souped up automobiles. If you dig that, The Crew 2 will have its fair share of shiny, super-powered rides, but it will also feature just about form of personal transportation you can imagine.
As shown in the cinematic trailer, The Crew once again takes place in a large open world; one that is filled with airplanes, motocross bikes, helicopters, speedboats, and more, all of which you will have the opportunity to take control of. If this sounds whacky, that’s because that seems to be exactly what Ubisoft is shooting for. In one sequence, two motocross bikes raced against a rally car and a monster truck.
Still, for those who just want to race cars, The Crew 2 will expand on the original by including enclosed and off-road tracks, in addition to street races.
In the extended gameplay trailer shown below, you can watch each type of vehicle in action to get a better idea of what to expect.
The Crew 2 may be a sprawling open world, but a headquarters menu system allows players to switch between vehicle classes. “The Spot” is the street racing HQ, and “The Pit” is the pro racing HQ — both of which appear to be centered around cars. Meanwhile, “Base Camp” serves as the offroad HQ, and “The Barn” is reserved for the freestyle HQ. These two are presumably reserved for new types of travel like boats, planes, and bikes.
We only saw a portion of The Crew 2‘s map, but so far that includes New York City, San Francisco, parts of the American Southwest, the Big Sur region in California.
The Crew 2 launches in early 2018 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Ubisoft will host a beta later this year, which you can sign up for here. It’s unclear if The Crew 2 will be online only like its predecessor, but if it is, hopefully it won’t suffer from the same technical issues.
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