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‘The Crew 2’ expands open-world racing to the air and sea
The middling reception to The Crew hasn't stopped Ubisoft from making a sequel. The open-world racing franchise returns with The Crew 2, this time with planes and boats thrown into the mix. You'll be racing through 'Motornation,' a fictional version of the United States which includes cities, forests and deserts. Think of it like Steep, Ubisoft's action-sports adventure game, but for motorsport. One minute, you'll be racing through New York City in a supercar, the next, you'll be carving through a swamp in a high-speed jet boat. You can't do the latter in Need for Speed, that's for sure.
Ubisoft executives fined millions for alleged insider trading
In addition to a looming hostile takeover, Ubisoft corporate has to deal with over a million Euros in fines for alleged insider trading. The Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) has levied a combined €1.27 million (almost $1.4 million) fine against Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat and VP of corporate affairs Francis Baillet. Executive director of worldwide studios Christine Burgess, Ubisoft Montreal VP of executive operations Olivier Paris and Damien Moret, who's the director of brand development for the company were also named.
'The Crew': The Joystiq Review
In the course of the last console generation, Ubisoft has gone from "the French publisher behind the Tom Clancy games" to the world's leading creator of lucrative open-world sandbox franchises (by quantity, if not quality). This success hinges on a simple formula shared by all of Ubisoft's open-world games: Large, interesting worlds plus tons of things to see and do equals happy customers. Based on massive sales and a decade of largely positive critical response, this seems like a solid and, more crucially, reproducible formula. With The Crew, Ubisoft and developer Ivory Tower hope to apply those principles to the world of arcade-style racing games while also tacking on an omnipresent multiplayer component that supposedly makes the game's world -– an abridged take on the entire contiguous United States -– feel more alive, while also making it simple and fun to race around the country with your friends online. It's an idea that's undeniably ambitious and, if executed properly, could propel The Crew to the front of the racing game pack. Unfortunately, this racer is more Yugo than Porsche. Click here for the full review!
Ubisoft pulls 'Far Cry 4' from Steam, then puts it back (update)
What happened not too long ago with Electronic Arts and its Origin platform appears to be happening with Ubisoft too. As Kotaku has noticed, Ubisoft's trio of tentpole releases for this fall -- Assassin's Creed Unity, Far Cry 4 and The Crew -- are no longer available on Valve's game store, seemingly disappearing overnight. Curiously, older entries in each respective franchise are still available (and reasonably priced) on Gabe Newell's one-stop PC-gaming shop. Even weirder yet? VG247 has spotted that ACU and FC4 are now listed on Origin. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense especially considering Ubisoft has its own digital storefront. We've pinged the outfit's PR team for details about what's up and will update this post should we hear back. Update: As many in the comments have pointed out, all three games are in fact available on Steam once again. What was behind their removal? For now at least, Ubisoft isn't saying.
E3 2014: Fighting car bosses in Ubisoft's The Crew
I still can't believe racing MMOs are a thing. I know some people say they're just racing games and not proper MMOs, but once you get inside something like The Crew, you'll find a lot of interesting stuff. I demoed Ubisoft's persistent-world racer at last year's E3, and this year's hands-on revealed some changes for the better.
E3 2013: Open-world racing with The Crew
Don't worry, you're not on the wrong website. This is still Massively and this is a hands on and interview about a racing game. Specifically, according to lead designer Serkan Hassan, this is a racing MMO. The Crew used the word "persistent world" so yours truly had to hunt down a very helpful Ubisoft representative for a last-minute look at the game. I will admit that while I had my doubts, the feature list does make it legit, and despite the fact that I'm awful at realistic racing games, I did have some fun.
