Ubisoft just showed off some bits and pieces of The Crew 2, the first full sequel to 2014’s The Crew. And judging from what we saw onstage and in the videos Ubisoft just uploaded to YouTube, The Crew 2 is all about taking the idea of an open-world racer to almost absolute limits.
The Crew 2 isn’t about wowing you with lifelike physics, or overwhelming you with a collection of pixel-perfect, officially licensed cars (though it definitely includes a bunch). Instead, it’s all about letting you drive everything. That means cars, racecars, off-road cars, planes, boats, bikes, and more. The trailer shows off everything from street racing, to Formula One-style competition, to a stand-in for the Red Bull Air Race series. There’s even a few glimpses of Sprint Boat racing — a niche but truly insane form of motorsports that you should take a few minutes to watch right now.
Of course, in true Crew fashion, all of this is taken way beyond realism, to sometimes questionable extremes. (The planes, for instance, are shown racing through and around the buildings of Manhattan, which seems like an iffy choice no matter what year it is.) Whether Ubisoft can still make the game feel grounded while reaching for such heights is a question worth asking in the coming months as The Crew 2 comes out in beta, and when it hits Xbox, PlayStation, and PC in 2018.
