2023 has one more thing to take away from the greater MMO genre: Ubisoft is sunsetting The Crew, the original game in the driving franchise.
“Today, The Crew 1, including all its editions, and virtual currency packs, will be delisted from all online stores,” Ubisoft announced last night. “The game will remain playable until March 31st, 2024, for all The Crew 1 owners. After this date, the servers will be shut down, which means that the game will not be accessible anymore on any platform, including PC / Xbox 360 / Xbox One / PlayStation 4 / Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+. We understand this may be disappointing for players still enjoying the game, but it has become a necessity due to upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints.”
Usually sunset announcements end there, perhaps with an addendum about refunds, but Ubisoft Ivory Tower actually takes a moment to get personal, or as personal as a studio of 300 people can be, launching into storytime about the game’s origins as a racing game dreamed up by a trio of friends in 2007 and launching seven years later. If you do the math there, you realize this game is being sunsetted before it’s even 10 years old.
The saving grace here is that two other versions of The Crew will continue on; the company clearly means to push players to The Crew 3 aka The Crew Motorfest. “Decommissioning a game, and especially our first one, is not something we take lightly,” the team writes. “Our goal remains to provide the best action driving gameplay experience for players and to deliver on it, we are continuing to provide new content and support for The Crew 2 and the recently launched The Crew Motorfest.”
