It’s been half a decade since Ubisoft launched its massive open-world racer, The Crew 2. The massive multi-vehicle game has been well supported since its initial launch in 2018, but now it seems like the team at Ivory Tower is finally ready to move on. After a few rumors dropped about an imminent reveal of its successor, Ubisoft has now come forth and confirmed the new game, presumably titled The Crew 3, will be revealed on January 31.
The news came out of a reply by the official The Crew 2 Twitter account to @BlackPanthaa, a fairly popular YouTuber who focuses a lot on racing games. The YouTuber mentioned The Crew 3 as a possible 2023 game. Answering, the game’s Twitter account dropped a simple announcement time: 5PM UTC/9AM PST (12PM EST) on January 31.
@BlackPanthaaYT Tomorrow. 5PM UTC/9AM PST.
— The Crew 2 (@TheCrewGame) January 30, 2023
The Crew 2 has been supported since release with a decent flow of content updates and live events. However, there hasn’t been an enormous amount of fanfare within the general sphere of racing games, nor really that much recognition from Ubisoft itself. Thus, some may find it surprising that a third follow-up is coming. That said, if the game wasn’t performing well enough, then it wouldn’t have received such a long cycle of consistent support.
The time between the release of the original The Crew and The Crew 2 was four years. Assuming the next entry in the series is set to drop in 2023, then this would have given it an extra year of development.
Rev’ up those engines, Ubisoft teases possible announcement of The Crew 3
The Crew 2 was a massive departure from its predecessor. While the first title had a more gritty, hardcore theme similar to the likes of Need for Speed and Driver, The Crew 2 veered well off course. It instead focused on a far more sanitized, cheerful and competitive theme that encompassed racers exploring a condensed map of the United States. Players competed in different events with multiple vehicle types such as bikes, off-roaders, and even planes and boats, all in addition to traditional street cars.
It remains to be seen which direction The Crew 3 will now take, given the split identity the series has up to this point.
In the time that The Crew 2 has been around, there have been two releases from the Forza Horizon series — it’s biggest competitor and arguable source of inspiration considering the very similar social-focused nature of The Crew 2. Forza Horizon 4 launched mere months before The Crew 2 and the even-larger Forza Horizon 5 launched back in 2021. It appears the two franchises will once again battle it out with fairly close releases.
