The Crew 2 first impressions, launch trailer

After playing the PS4 and Xbox One closed and open betas earlier this month (on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X respectively) and now the final PS4 review version, I can certainly see where Ubisoft wanted to take The Crew 2 in this bigger and very different online, open world motorsports sequel..

While you won’t find anything that resembles even semi-realistic simulations of driving a car, a motorcycle, a boat or a plane, The Crew 2 encourages exploration and sharing in the open world land/sea/air environments of the United States. The map is absolutely massive and players can take a ride, in a vehicle of their choice, from sea to shining sea in fairly decent recreations of US cities and landmarks. Sure, it’s not super accurate by any means but the fact that it all exists in one game is pretty damn impressive, especially considering you’re not tethered to the ground (or realistic physics even). Being able to jump from a plane, to a truck, to a boat on the fly is obviously quite unrealistic but the feature is also a lot of fun so far. Swapping vehicles and dropping a speedboat right onto the Las Vegas strip on accident was pretty amusing.

The game is a sandbox first and foremost, and one which players can leisurely complete challenges in many disciplines (street racing, pro-racing, off-roading and freestyling), unlock new vehicles, accrue social “followers” and share with the community in many ways from taking photos to creating/uploading detailed liveries.  It’s a somewhat aimless experience in certain respects, and players will likely play The Crew 2 in their own way and create their own adventures.  There’s a “story” and a thread of player progression, not that dissimilar to Ubisoft’s winter sports-themed Steep, but it doesn’t take long to realize that the experience is all about teaming up with friends and/or bumping into other live players in the open world and competing or working together to climb the social ranks within the game.  Or just explore the environments, complete challenges, win some races, pull off some stunts, hit the open road, earn cool new vehicles and loot (yeah, there’s a simple loot system in there, which we need to dig deeper into a bit more).

As we head off into the large world of The Crew 2 and gather notes for our review, here’s a launch trailer.

The Crew 2: The Wild Road – Launch Trailer:

The Crew 2 launches on Friday, June 29th, 2018 for the PS4, Xbox One and PC.