Ubisoft's racing MMO The Crew won't get day-one reviews

[John Williamson]

Ubisoft's upcoming open-world racing MMO The Crew won't be available to press outlets until the game has been publicly released next December 2nd, delaying access to reviews for people interested in a professional opinion before buying. In a blog post, Ubisoft stated:

"We also know that many of you will be eager to turn to experts for their professional advice. You want to read how the pros feel after their carefully considered road tests of The Crew. While we totally understand (hey, we read reviews, too!), The Crew was built from the beginning to be a living playground full of driving fans, so it’s only possible to assess our game in its entirety with other real players in the world." 

This seems like a sensible precaution since critics would struggle to accurately critique The Crew with only a small selection of gaming journalists occupying the preview build.  However, Ubisoft has committed various faux pas of late which culminated in the buggy mess that was Assassin's Creed Unity. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low and with post-release access one might think Ubisoft is trying to delay any negative coverage.

Such a move isn't necessarily meant to coincide with a broken or lacklustre game, though. For example, Wolfenstein: The New Order implemented a similar policy and received widespread critical acclaim.

For what it's worth, Ubisoft appears to adopting a more open development process with The Crew, with frequent public betas designed to gauge the server load and make tweaks based on user feedback. While this is an interesting move, the reaction so far has been lukewarm with users criticizing the handling model for being too simplistic. It will be fascinating to see if "community media" becomes more prevalent in Ubisoft's future plans.

Below is The Crew's latest trailer, which should give you an idea if the game is up your street ahead of release on PC and other major consoles. Those on a latest-gen console can also join the final open beta running from November 25 to November 27.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/58964-ubisoft-wont-give-gaming-journalists-early-access-crew.html

 

[davislane1]

When I was a teenager, I thought games like this were pretty cool. After having accumulated thousands of hours behind an actual wheel, the whole concept of a game premised on driving everywhere in the country via expressway/interstate/blacktop/backroads is now completely unappealing to me.

That said, if there is Snowpocalypse 2014 DLC on disk, I might buy a copy, just to see how they reconstruct that nightmare.

 

[cliffordcooley]

There shouldn't be early access reviews period. They only skew the true results of a final release.

No one will know what to expect until the servers are loaded on or after the day of release. This is when the reviews should be written.

 

[m4a4]

There shouldn't be early access reviews period. They only skew the true results of a final release.

No one will know what to expect until the servers are loaded on or after the day of release. This is when the reviews should be written.

They should be able to write a first impressions review, as long as it's stated that it's not a full review and isn't treated like one (with the full one coming after release).

 

[EEatGDL]

There shouldn't be early access reviews period. They only skew the true results of a final release.

No one will know what to expect until the servers are loaded on or after the day of release. This is when the reviews should be written.

And they keep digging...

While that's true, people are waiting for reviews these days at least to acknowledge technical problems like major bugs, glitches, performance issues, if their systems will be able to run it... and then on second term there's the opinion, which someone may choose to discard [because of differences in taste and expectations].

For example: I can understand a reviewer not liking a driving game because he simply doesn't like driving games and you may like them; the reviewer at least can tell if it's playable or not at all, and that to me is more important before throwing money.

 

[Stika]

As a PC gamer I've pretty much given up on Ubisoft, I really do NOt understand their strategy these days. It's like they go out of their way to ensure every PC game they create sells poorly.

 

[insect]

The Crew was built from the beginning to be a living playground full of driving fans, so it’s only possible to assess our game in its entirety with other real players in the world.

Except that because of this policy you still won't have players in your world.

 

[amstech]

Even though IGN, Gamespot and other popular review sites say they aren't being paid their also not dropping scores like 3/10 on games anymore (or its not as common). Games that should be a 5/10 get a 6 or 7/10 out of courtesy so all partners are happy.
I wish James and Mike from Cinemassacre would review more newer games, they give their honest opinion!
There's a couple of decent guys on Youtube doing honest reviews (developers tried to complain about YouTube reviews and that it hurts their product, too god damn bad I want to know what I am spending $65 on) and I will look to them for advice.
Watching a commercial advertise a game and show all the great reviews is like a hooker taking your money before she performed any service.
For legit reviews I pretty much stay away from any major gaming or tech site, and I know of many others that do the same.

 

[S_Brideau]

Another game that sounds fun from them, but I haven't been buying their games for a while, voting with my wallet for more quality from them, so I probably won't be buying it either, at least for now.

It seems that more and more companies block reviews before the release date because they know they have technical issues with them, and with Ubisoft's history lately, where they did this with games that are poorly optimized and full of bugs, The Crew could have these issues as well but only time will tell when the game gets released. Let's not forget that the launch could have issues because of groups like lizard squad throwing a ddos attack on the servers thinking they are cool by doing so.

 

[BlueDrake]

There shouldn't be early access reviews period. They only skew the true results of a final release.

No one will know what to expect until the servers are loaded on or after the day of release. This is when the reviews should be written.

The problem is their Steam page, which is basically filled with beta comments. Unless they feel like asking for a complete wipe, they should be flagged with a Beta marker or something. It's going to skew a lot of things, when there's the inevitable rage from people hating the game launch. Yes it lists dates on each post, but most people just skim over that and it's not going to help.

 

[Adhmuz]

Easy solution, DON'T BUY IT ON LAUNCH, and instead wait for the reviews. Chances are they will still need a day one patch and the servers won't be able to handle it thus creating the usual cluster of fudge on the forums.

"After having accumulated thousands of hours behind an actual wheel, the whole concept of a game premised on driving everywhere in the country via expressway/interstate/blacktop/backroads is now completely unappealing to me."

Except there are rules on the road that make it mundane and unappealing, don't forget about traffic, video games take away those rules and say do it how you like and that's the appeal, if I simply wanted to drive a car around I would literally go outside, get in my car and drive.

It's still not nearly as bad as having to physically mine virtual ore in a game for hours on end, that to me is worse than actually working, at least life pays you, virtual crap will always just be, virtual crap.

 

[davislane1]

"Except there are rules on the road that make it mundane and unappealing, don't forget about traffic, video games take away those rules and say do it how you like and that's the appeal, if I simply wanted to drive a car around I would literally go outside, get in my car and drive."

The differences between real driving and virtual driving do not escape me. Nevertheless, the three days of closed beta I played reminded me of driving a real car in traffic. Yes, there were police chases, races, and vehicular anarchy not to be had IRL. But it all felt every bit the drawn-out chore real driving is during rush hour. Ordinary driving is typically a mundane task; so is The Crew.

 

[yukka]

Danger danger. Not preordering a game again. It's too suspicious now when they ask for reviewers to hold off. I know online games are a bit different but still, it's not like they never release buggy messes at full price is it.

 

[Mikymjr]

I hope they don't screw it up just like EA does with NFS-world. I like racing, but NFS-world was riddled with flaws. The major one being to allow cheats being used. It defeats the purpose of racing; you need to win with skill or acquire skill to win or become the best at racing. That being said, NFS-world sucks single handedly because they allow cheats. It was so bad that when I manage to win a race through skill with a small car or a sleeper, I would be called a cheater (note: yes at every race I entered one time, there was someone using a cheat to either jump to finish, reaching speeds of 400km/h with mediocre car specs or making a car as heavy as a tank). Achievements also suck; first time I started racing, I could win random performance parts or unique stuff after 20 or 50 races.....now they changed the algorithm so much that maybe after 100-200 races I manage to win a performance part. Sorry for all that text. I dislike it when a good game is turned into a bad one

 

[Guest]

I'm losing faith in UbiSoft, Far Cry 3 was a great game with good multiplayer but the issues were severe and never fully fixed. I spent good $ on Far Cry 4 hoping it would be better as far as the issues. They totally butchered the multiplayer, I even went to get the season pass praying it would be good. There is no competitive multiplayer in the game at all, it's all class based and totally different from what the Far Cry franchise had going for it. Then the buggy release of Assassins Creed and buggy Far Cry 4 straight off the shelf.

They are beginning to pull the old ET move and will lose the majority of their fan base soon.

 

[red1776]

ARCADE

 

[DAOWAce]

Everyone stopped pre-ordering games, right?