Ubisoft are adding offline modes to The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest after getting savaged over junking The Crew

If you partake of some virtual rubber-burning, you might remember Ubisoft shuttered its open world racing game The Crew in March by turning off its servers. Given that The Crew is an online-only game, that signalled its death knell… or death horn, more accurately. Then in April, they tow-trucked the game out of people's libraries and revoked their purchases. This led to a backlash, as you'd expect, and Ubisoft are accordingly taking a different approach with The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. They're giving both an offline mode to "ensure long term access to both titles".

In a Xwitter post, Ubisoft put out a short video saying that they're "currently exploring different solutions", and "can confirm an offline mode". It's more than likely this is in response to how they handled both the previous games' shut down. As PC Gamer notes, the game is also currently on sale for $1, which is objectively a good deal.

Even when EA turned off the online servers for a tonne of Need For Speed games in 2021, they were at least playable offline. Then again, The Crew 2 sells itself more heavily as an online game. Turning off the servers means it'll likely be a lonely experience even if it's still playable.

In our single player review, John Walker (RPS in peace) deemed it "an awful lot of not very much", which doesn't bode all too well for when Ubisoft's pit crews arrive and bolt in the offline mode (unless they announce local co-op or something?). Mind you, John wasn't impressed by the multiplayer offerings, either. "The Crew 2, an online only game, has no inherent multiplayer at all", he said. "Up to four of you can group together as a "crew" and take on its scant co-op challenges. That's it."

I've not played The Crew 2 so I can't comment. The closest I've come to playing a driving game recently is when I logged into Fortnite and the season at the time had you driving Mad Max-style vehicles. Honestly? The best driving game I've played as of late was Warzone's late Armored Royale mode. I still think about it often.