Alluding to it earlier this month in their response to the late Assassin’s Creed Unity reviews, Ubisoft has confirmed that The Crew won’t be available for media review until the game launches next week on December 2, with no embargo in effect once the game launches.
Furthermore, Ubisoft confirmed to Videogamer that The Crew servers will go live on Monday, December 1 at 3:01am PT/11:01am GMT, meaning no one can play the game until then as The Crew requires an internet connection to play.
Here’s Ubisoft’s statement on The Crew reviews:
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. And by other, we mean thousands and thousands and thousands of players – something that can’t be simulated with a handful of devs playing alongside the press.
For this very reason, The Crew will be available to media to begin their reviews when the game launches on December 2. There will be absolutely no embargo on any type of coverage once the game is available for sale. While we fully anticipate that you might see some reviews immediately at launch – largely built around the preview sessions we facilitated during the past months or the limited content of the closed and open betas – they won’t be based on optimal conditions or reflect the finished game. We sincerely hope everyone will take the time to customize their ride as they progress through all five regions, explore every corner of the map solo and with friends, dive into our competitive and cooperative mechanics, race to the end of the main campaign, choose a Faction and compete with your crew in Factions Wars, and so much more.
The Crew is all about social gameplay. Indeed, it’s as easy to partner with a pair of strangers as it is with your carefully chosen crew, then speed through a variety of missions or challenges in the game’s seamless open world. Even when you’re taking a solitary cruise through one of America’s great cities, you’ll continuously pass by other real-life gamers, all of whom bring The Crew’s America to life.
If you want to play The Crew before launch, the open beta went live on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One today.
Noting that the open beta “doesn’t represent the final stage of the game,” here’s some updates Ubisoft applied to the beta:
Improvements
- For this Open Beta, the team has applied some server modifications that should improve the “Session service.”
Known Issues
During the previous Closed Beta on consoles, some players encountered difficulties to see other player in free ride. This big has been partially fixed and here’s the workaround:
- Going in and out of a “Car Tuner” or the “HQ”.
- Teleport to a friend
- Group with friend
Ubisoft adds that “this bug will be entirely fixed for the launch” next week.
Are you trying out the open beta this week?
[Source: Ubisoft, The Crew, Videogamer]
