At their E3 press conference, Ubisoft announced MMO racer The Crew, and the internet immediately began to compare it to upcoming next gen racers DriveClub and Forza 5.
Ubisoft senior vice president of sales and marketing Tony Key told IGN:
Saying it’s a racing game is a little bit ambiguous, because what does that mean? DriveClub and Forza are doing heavy simulation, where you can almost smell the leather. That’s really not what The Crew is. The Crew is open world. What we’re saying is that it’s really an MMO. You really need to be connected to get the most out of it. We do think that it’s a genre-bender, because the best way to play The Crew is online with friends. Hands down. I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be the case with these other games on the market, so we think we have a unique spot there. By the way, for an open world game, it’s actually quite beautiful.
Key also talked about how the next generation of consoles has helped improve open world games.
There’s so much that the next generation is offering. One of the things that we will see with the next generation is the density it can offer to open worlds. We make a lot of open world games. There are more people. The environment, the leaves blowing on the ground, the whole density of the thing. All that power adds to that. That adds visually, to some degree, to the eye, but it’s really that immersion factor. It’s that much more real. That’s what next-gen really brings. It’s more immersion. Until you experience that, it’s hard to explain in words.
Do you think an open world racer like The Crew will work, or do you prefer something more along the lines of DriveClub or Gran Turismo? Let us know in the comments.
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