Creative director Julian Gerighty feels his team's racer The Crew is actually "an RPG," and he credits the connection players can form with their cars as they sink "time and money" unlocking their potential.
The extensive customisation options they have in The Crew is a prime example of its RPG qualities, argues Gerighty. He draws on his personal love of his 'not great' car. "It was my space."
The Crew is Ubisoft's ambitious open world racer that actually spans across the United States, from coast to coast. Driving from New York to L.A. can take an hour.
“We see this as an RPG,” Gerighty posted on the Ubisoft Blog. “It’s an RPG where if you start with a car and you love that car, you’ll be able to invest time and money into it and unlock all of its possibilities.”
“With the Camaro, we can take it from a street vehicle to a performance vehicle – a heavily modified vehicle – to a pure off-road vehicle, and at the end of the game you’re going to be able to make it a racecar,” Gerighty continued, adding that “attachment to your cars is a huge part of car culture.”
Even the planned companion app, which lets you connect socially to The Crew, also lets you tinker with your car. "We wanted to recreate the world on the companion app and have your social hub there too,” Gerighty says.
“You can see who’s playing at the moment and you can see if they’ve beaten you. There’s that very kinetic, asynchronous thing where you wake up in the morning and check it and you can see that five people have beaten your scores. There’s a lot of stat porn in there.” Check out the full Ubisoft Blog for more.
The Crew releases on PC, Xbox One and PS4 Q4 2014.
