The Crew Motorfest Preview – Competent And Familiar

The Crew, Ubisoft’s racing franchise akin to Microsoft’s Forza series and EA’s Need For Speed, has been around for nearly a decade. Since its launch, The Crew has not been able to establish itself as a racing franchise, even though sales have allowed for a second sequel, and now a third in The Crew Motorfest. Motorfest was the subject of a hands-on, four-hour remote preview. I hoped to get a different impression. Motorfest, just like The Crew 2 or The Crew, feels uninspired even though it is a good racer. 

If you’ve played a recent Forza Horizon from Xbox’s Playground Games, Motorfest will feel similar – perhaps too similar. This festival is held on Oahu, a tropical island in Hawaii. Motorfest features flashy race cinematics, firework displays, sculptures and signs announcing the event. It’s bright and pretty, but doesn’t feel unique. Perhaps Oahu is the shining example of what I see in my head when I picture a tropical island, but if it isn’t, then Motorfest paints it as a generalized tropical island. This speaks to my largest issue with Motorfest – it lacks identity beyond a surface level. 

Throughout Motorfest I will use different playlists to organise the open world activities in Oahu. There’s a Porsche 911 Legacy, Made in Japan, Offroad Addict, Motorsports, Vintage Garage, Electric Odyssey, and Lamborghini playlist, and each offers a different handful of themed races. Some of these are better than others – I especially like the Porsche 911 Legacy playlist races, with archival footage speaking to the history of this famed vehicle, and the Vintage Garage one, which rethemes the races and game’s visuals to feel like the 1960s, with turbo-less cars that lack GPS for use during races. Electric Odyssey is interesting too, with its focus on electric vehicles and street lanes designed to specifically charge your battery’s turbo. The races are different, but after a few minutes, all of them blend into one, no matter the differences in cars, planes, or boats. 

It is particularly evident in the Made in Japan play list, where you are required to become a member of a racing squad from Japan. While this playlist features the appropriate cars, with modded Mazdas and Hondas taking the spotlight, Motorfest’s overall idea of Japanese street racing celebration boils down to characters calling your car a “kaiju” or Godzilla often, and a rethemed Honolulu made to look like vaguely Japanese, Tokyo-esque even. Except it doesn’t – it’s just Honolulu at night, with rain, a frankly absurd amount of neon purple and pink signs and, of course, plenty of the same dragon floats scattered throughout each track.

This retheme is similar to the Mountainside Races with a more toned down theming. I am curious as to how the Made in Japan soundtrack will change over the course of the various races. But after three races, I sense this theming is shallow, going no further than a few Japanese phrases and neon lights somewhat reminiscent of Tokyo’s Shibuya district. 

I complete about three races in every playlist and feel the same about each – the theming and attention to history and culture is exciting at first, teasing more to come, only for it to fall short of going any deeper than this first impression. But this entire preview is a first impression, so I don’t want to give a final judgment on these playlists and how they celebrate individual car cultures just yet. 

Each playlist has a racing experience that is competent and enjoyable. The Crew has subtly differentiated itself from other racing franchises by including car-to-boat-to-plane, on-the-fly transitions, and it’s still good fun in Motorfest. The game is a racer, but it’s not much different. I already prefer the likes of Forza and Need for Speed, so Motorfest’s gameplay isn’t selling itself to me much here. But if you’re after another racing game because you’ve completed whatever else is out there, you’ll have decent fun with Motorfest’s vehicles. 

After completing my overview, I trudge into the Main Stage. It’s a confusing list of races you have to complete on a season-by-season basis. I compete in a series of races with a competition feel, where my goal is to win a prize. On the Explore track I do freestyle stunts on Oahu and find special loot around the island. In the Revisit Track, I revisit the races that were previously in other Playlists in the game. Main Stage seems like an excellent way to engage players with Motorfest past credits. But how it performs as a season-based live-service mechanic has yet to be tested. 

My four hours with Motorfest aren’t bad, but they aren’t all that thrilling either. Motorfest, at its very best, is an excellent racing game. But my first (long) impression is that it’s boring and falls flat in a genre constantly expanding with unique ideas on the racing formula from AAA and independent developers. Motorfest aims to compete with the former, but after this hands-on preview, I’m not sure it has the traction needed to compete on that track.