How The Crew became an Xbox One and PS4 title

Ubisoft's arcade racer The Crew wasn't originally planned as a next-gen title, but the team's drive (pardon the pun) for a more "non-procedural nature" for the world in which it is set is what led to the game becoming an Xbox One and PlayStation 4 title.

"It happened about a year and a half ago, where we realized we can push this a little bit further, we can push the personalization of the world, the non-procedural nature of the world, a little bit further if we do it on Xbox One and PS4,” Ivory Tower creative director Julian Gerighty told Digital Trends. “So our Miami is radically different from our New York, which is normal but it takes a lot of work to get it to that level of quality. And that’s only possible on this next-generation.”

Despite the change in platforms, Gerighty assured that the game's concept hasn't changed from the one that was thought of when development started four years ago.

”The game hasn’t changed, its just taken that long to get it working and working as well as we want it to be working," he said. "All of the concepts that we have here are concepts that the team has been working on for the last 10 years. The massive open world that’s shared with hundreds of other players? That’s something that the team did for Test Drive Unlimited [in 2006], which was ahead of its time.”

While The Crew faces stiff competition from Microsoft and Sony with Forza 5 and Driveclub, respectively, our hands-on preview with Ubisoft's open-world racer gives us every bit of confidence that it's up for the challenge.

[Digital Trends]