The Crew: Embargo Lifts After Launch

Ubisoft has not had a great year and it looks like it may be getting worse for them sadly. As Ubisoft has announced that reviewers will not receive their review copies of The Crew until the day before release, December 1st. The servers for The Crew will also not be up until it’s official launch either. Ubisoft has posted the reasons on their blog, stating the following:

“We also know that many of you will be eager to turn to experts for their professional advice. You want to read how the pros feel after their carefully considered road tests of The Crew. While we totally understand (hey, we read reviews, too!), The Crew was built from the beginning to be a living playground full of driving fans, so it’s only possible to assess our game in its entirety with other real players in the world. And by other, we mean thousands and thousands and thousands of players – something that can’t be simulated with a handful of devs playing alongside the press.

For this very reason, The Crew will be available to media to begin their reviews when the game launches on December 2. There will be absolutely no embargo on any type of coverage once the game is available for sale. While we fully anticipate that you might see some reviews immediately at launch – largely built around the preview sessions we facilitated during the past months or the limited content of the closed and open betas – they won’t be based on optimal conditions or reflect the finished game. We sincerely hope everyone will take the time to customize their ride as they progress through all five regions, explore every corner of the map solo and with friends, dive into our competitive and cooperative mechanics, race to the end of the main campaign, choose a Faction and compete with your crew in Factions Wars, and so much more.”

While fans are somewhat outraged, the concern from Ubisoft is somewhat valid. As The Crew is somewhat an MMO that is meant to be played with many people. MMOs actually do this quite often though, as the full experience is playing with massive amounts of players. Ubisoft though has had a rough year, with titles like Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed Unity stirring up controversy and outrage. While The Crew has been much different than these titles, The Crew has had several open and closed betas where players were able to test the game out. The Crew will be released on December 2nd and reviewers have been told to play the game for 30-40 hours in order to gain the full experience that The Crew has to offer, which means many reviews will be out on that Friday and should be dropping throughout the weekend. While The Crew is a different case, it still worries players who were going to look to reviews to help their decision on whether or not they want to purchase The Crew.