When we were originally deciding how to cover the Ubisoft demos that we got to play at Ubisoft Forward during Summer Game Fest, we were going to divide the article based on each game. Leaving the Ubisoft Forward event, we had gameplay footage of The Division: Resurgence, The Crew: Motorfest, and Prince of Persia; The Lost Crown.

Frustratingly, both Prince of Persia and The Crew were in a file format that were not able to be uploaded to YouTube directly and needed a converter. While converting The Crew Motorfest, an error occurred corrupting our footage, however, we still have our footage from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

Early on, we thought about combining the two articles into one because of the loss of footage, but after contemplation, decided to keep them separate, to an extent. Both demos gave us a good bit of hands-on time with each game but walking away from demos, I was more impressed with what The Crew: Motorfest had done compared to Prince of Persia.

Now this could be biased based on wanting an open-world Prince of Persia game vs a 2D side-scroller. But with the Crew, it felt like they had learned from what they had done in the previous games and took some of what their competitors have put out to make a fun and unique racing experience.

The Crew Motorfest

During our time with The Crew Motorfest, we got to try out four different playlists each with its own unique feel and playstyle. The four playlists focused on different types of vehicles; they covered off-roading, exotic street racing in Asia, expensive luxury cars, and classic vehicles.

With off-roading, we had to predict how the road’s rocks, divets, hills, and bends would force the vehicle to move. Watching the car bounce and sway as we hit different objects gave a realistic simulation of how it feels to off-road. For anyone, who does go off-roading, this playlist felt like the real deal since you never know exactly how your vehicle will react and you have to be ready for anything.

With exotic street racing, the game focused on hitting sharp turns and being able to drift rather than having to go fast. The Nissan Skyline GTR makes an appearance in this playlist and can be yours. The playlist is full of colorful neon lights and gives a realistic feeling as if you are racing through the city. The competition’s talking can be a bit annoying but feel as if you are in an actual street race.

With the Luxury Sports cars playlist, the races felt like you were trying to push the vehicle to its limits. In a way, it almost felt bad when you would collide with another racer, but the race seemed to offer large open stretches rather than tight turns. The soundtrack in this playlist featured a wide variety of artists but also featured Blondie in the last race. If you are playing in streamer mode, there will be a completely different soundtrack which creates a completely different experience.

Finally, the last one we tried out was the vintage car playlist. Rather than having a GPS to guide us, we had a more classical experience. The game used photos to guide us to our destination and in a way this seems more wholesome. It’s almost like when you are driving somewhere for the first time without having to race there and getting to take in the environment.

By far this was my favorite game mode. The way they combined the classic feel with a similar style for driving made it feel as if you jumped back in time to try out these antique beauties. The end of the playlist is a race of these vintage cars although slightly supped up.

Takeaways

The Crew Motorfest has fined tuned its gameplay and learned from its past experience. The driving within the game felt more natural than in previous iterations. Rather than going with their own style, they have decided to adapt and evolve. The rewind feature and the ability to adjust the race difficulty made it easier for races who want to just race to have a fun experience rather than deal with tough competition.

The playlists all have their own unique stories and characters which adds a sense of exclusiveness, unlike Forza’s playlists. In regards to the game’s soundtrack, the car’s sound effects each sounded different from one another; additionally, there are two different music soundtracks, one that is stream friendly and one for those who enjoy classic tracks.

The three things I would have loved to find out about The Crew Motorfest are 1. Can you choose to use customizable cars? 2. What songs are in the game that we did not get to experience? 3. How many cars are in the game and how will online racing work?

We look forward to checking out Hawaii and all that The Crew Motorfest has to offer when it releases on September 14, 2023, on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X