Skip to main content

Developing a regional identity with friends in ‘The Crew’

The Crew screenshot Ubisoft
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ubisoft’s and developer Ivory Tower’s The Crew feels like a game that could only exist in the next hardware generation. With an open world map than spans a stylized, truncated version of the continental United States and a completely merged single player/multiplayer experience, the scope of what’s going on here feels too big for what current game consoles can pull off. That’s not how the racing game was originally conceived, however.

Recommended Videos

“This game started over four years ago,” Ivory Tower creative director Julian Gerighty tells Digital Trends. “The game hasn’t changed, its just taken that long to get it working and working as well as we want it to be working. All of the concepts that we have here are concepts that the team has been working on for the last 10 years. The massive open world that’s shared with hundreds of other players? That’s something that the team did for Test Drive Unlimited [in 2006], which was ahead of its time.”

“The game hasn’t changed, its just taken that long to get it working and working as well as we want it to be working”

The idea of shared worlds is very central to a lot of the next-gen discussions. It’s what Gerighty describes as “the console’s take on the MMO.” It took multiple evolutions of The Crew‘s engine to get the game to where it is right now – a PlayStation 4/Xbox One-exclusive – but it’s a change that happened organically. The ideas eventually just outgrew the old tech, and that’s right around the time that the new tech came along.

“It happened about a year and a half ago, where we realized we can push this a little bit further, we can push the personalization of the world, the non-procedural nature of the world, a little bit further if we do it on Xbox One and PS4,” Gerighty reveals. “So our Miami is radically different from our New York, which is normal but it takes a lot of work to get it to that level of quality. And that’s only possible on this next-generation.”

1370793246_thecrew_render_ford_focus_rs2010_dirt_nologo__e3_130610_415pm
Image used with permission by copyright holder

What’s in a crew?

The Crew is an unusual title for a racing game at first glance. Need for SpeedForza MotorsportGran Turismo… all of these immediately summon up vivid thoughts of speed, of cars racing, of motor oil staining a well-worn track. NASCAR enthusiasts might see the name The Crew and think of pit crews – which isn’t so far off, as it turns out – but an uninformed consumer wouldn’t necessarily make the connection. That said, the game’s title speaks directly to Ivory Tower’s goals for the game.

“It’s two things,” Gerighty says of the unusual title. “One, it’s a reference to the multiplayer side of things and the fact that you’re gathering your different friends to form a crew with you. That’s the whole spirit [of the game]: driving as a multiplayer team. It’s the crew.”

“But it’s also about the single player story, which you can play cooperatively, where you’re going from area to area, from city to city, and you have to recruit a crew of people who are going to supply you with the power-ups. That is your crew. So story-wise there’s a crew; just like in Fast & Furious, you have a crew of people getting together.”

1370793244_thecrew_render_2013_nissan_370z(z34)_street_nologo_e3_130610_415pm
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Building off the Fast & Furious comparison, the crew that you assemble in the story portion of the game is filled out by a range of distinct personalities that all bring along a different set of skills. “They’re NPCs who really represent a skill tree of different options you can choose to personalize, to tailor the driving experience the way you want it to be,” Gerighty says, noting that building an entertaining plot was just as important as nailing other aspects of The Crew‘s vision.

“The story is written by the writer for Red Dead Redemption [and] we’ve got a writer for GTA on the game. What I say is, it’s not Shakespeare, but it’s a fun story to play through.”

State pride

Little has been revealed of The Crew‘s faction-based multiplayer, which sees the U.S. divided into five different groups: East Coast, West Coast, The South, Mountain States, and Midwest. The regional factions give U.S. gamers an added sense of investment in the multiplayer events they participate in, but Gerighty is well aware that there’s an audience for this game that exists outside the constraints of the map. That’s why there is an effort being put into giving each factions its own, unique personality.

“We’re getting a tattoo artist who works on the team to develop a visual identity [for each faction]. I genuinely think it’s a question of visual identity. That’s why we’re working so much on [answering questions like], ‘Okay, what is the spirit of the West Coast? How do we design a West Coast that is super-attractive to people who don’t know the West Coast?'”

1370793252_thecrew_render_ruf_3400k_fullstock_nologo_e3_130610_415pm
Image used with permission by copyright holder

“So the visual identity of these places, and the types of vehicles and specializations that you’re going to have, those are important things to put forward. Even just the balancing; are we worried that the Midwest is going to be chosen a little bit less than the West Coast, for example? We’re going to have things like bonuses to encourage people to sign up for the Midwest. These scores are going to be refreshed after a certain amount of time and you’re going to be able to change your faction and allegiance after a certain amount of time as well.”

Gerighty clearly has more he’d like to share, but a more detailed reveal of The Crew‘s multiplayer is being held back for Gamescom in August 2013.

Pulling ahead of the pack

“The goal here is to make a really fun game, it’s to make the game that we’re passionate about. We’re gearheads.”

The big challenge that The Crew faces isn’t a matter of title messaging or delivering a comprehensive next-gen experience, it’s a question of finding a niche for an entirely new racing IP in a genre that is already brimming over with high-quality competitors. Gerighty admits that the competition is indeed daunting. “Forza? Incredible game. Need for Speed? Incredible game. But they’re very different games,” he says.

“So what are we bringing that’s really different? Apart from a massive open world that’s completely seamless online/offline, a persistent world with a focus on customization that’s going to allow you to live all of these different adventures of racing – from circuit races to street races to offroad races – well apart from those massive elements, not so much,” he says with a laugh.

When the core ideas of The Crew are laid bare like this, you really do get a better sense of how Ivory Tower intends for its game to stand out. It’s about realizing the dream of the shared game world that so much of the new console hardware is built to support. Most gamers appreciate having an expansive open world to explore, but The Crew takes the added step of delivering a way to share in that experience.

The Crew screenshot form E3 trailer
Image used with permission by copyright holder

“The goal here is to make a really fun game, it’s to make the game that we’re passionate about. We’re gearheads. I’ve got a kid, I don’t need to play twitch when I play. I want to relax, so there’s exploration. The street racing is for those guys that want a little more adrenaline. The circuit racing is for a little bit more simulation-style gameplay. But it’s all fun.”

“You can teleport your car,” Gerighty continues. “We’re not married to reality in a way that we’re going to stop you from fast-traveling if you want to fast-travel. We’re not going to force you to drive from New York to Los Angeles unless you really want to, or unless that’s the mission. All of this is, how do we make the game fun first? And I think that’s the major difference.”

 
Adam Rosenberg
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…
Shadow Labyrinth might just pull off its oddball elevator pitch
Pac-Man prepares to eat an enemy in Shadow Labyrinth.

45 years after the release of Pac-Man, Bandai Namco is finally answering the age-old question: "How would it play as a 2D Metroidvania?" Surely you’ve all been wondering that, right? Well, ask no more because we'll soon have an answer to that head-scratching question with Shadow Labyrinth on July 18.

At PAX East 2025, Digital Trends went hands-on with the upcoming game and chatted with Seigo Aizawa, producer at Bandai Namco, about Pac-Man's new look. Aizawa showed us how the oddball game is more true to Pac-Man’s core tenets than it looks at first glance. It may be a gritty Metroidvania with intense boss fights, but this is still the same maze-navigating eat-em-up you’ve been playing for decades, albeit in a very different light.

Read more
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s style is its substance
A distorted Eiffel Tower looms over a city that looks similar to Paris

From its establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower bent in on itself, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wants you to know it is very French, if a little twisted. The turn-based RPG revels in the aesthetic of developer Sandfall Interactive’s home country, which often helps to distinguish the game from its many high-profile influences. As a tale of death and grief it’s hard not to make comparisons to genre titans such as Final Fantasy X and Lost Odyssey. And sure, the themes are similar, but did Tidus ever wear a beret? I don’t think so.

Much of the overt French aesthetic of Clair Obscur can seem like a surface level coat of paint. Yet there is much more to Sandfall Interactive’s adoption of the Belle Époque style in this dark fantasy facsimile of France. With just a little understanding of French history, it becomes clear that this isn’t a case of style over substance -- the style is the substance.

Read more
The end of the Nintendo Switch era closes a long chapter in my own life
A person plays Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode.

My first memory of the Nintendo Switch is about as mundane as it gets. I don’t recall unboxing it, powering it on for the first time, or bringing it to a rooftop party. Instead, I see myself sitting in my ex’s living room on a random weekday. As they cooked, I sat quietly as I climbed atop of my first Divine Beast in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 

I don’t remember this because it was a triumphant achievement that showed off what kind of spectacle my new next-gen console could pull off; I remember it because I was very depressed.

Read more