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Ubisoft has been in the eye of the storm in several occasions, be it for one reason or another, but one of the most recent events that brought forth the disdain of the fanbase towards the gaming company was the complete delisting of the game "The Crew" from all available platforms.

Back in December 14th, 2023, Ubisoft released a post detailing that the very first game in the franchise "The Crew" would effectively have all of its servers shut down, with the deadline being March 31st, 2024. Alongside this, the game would be delisted from all online stores, including PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+, with Ubisoft offering a direct link for steps to request a refund. Ubisoft cited "upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints" as the main reasons to delist the game online.

The deadline came around and now the game is currently unavailable in any official manner.

Three months later, a community of devoted gamers have worked on a private server emulator for the game at hand, and on June 20th, 2024, they released a video showcasing what they called the "First Roadtrip After the Shutdown", which is a roadtrip from Detroit all the way to Black Hills in-game.

The full 15 mins video of the complete roadtrip is shown, and the custom server that "The Crew Unlimited" group has put together shows a great amount of dedication and passion for a now unsupported and abandoned game. The server emulator isn't public yet, but those interested can checkout the progress and upcoming news about the server in The Crew Unlimited Discord server.

The Crew Unlimited Discord server

 

[ZeroFX]

Be the change you want to see in the world.

I'm almost puking, your campaign did nothing. And follow your own "advice".

 

[scoobydude51]

watch the server emulator download link be exclusively on discord...

 

[Marc_LFD]

Not like they should care anyways, it's a decade old game that they don't care to remaster or rerelease.

They don't even care to release a patch to make it playable offline. Polyphony did that for Gran Turismo Sport.

 

[64bitmodels]

I'm almost puking, your campaign did nothing. And follow your own "advice".

this isn't his campaign you moron. Did you not read ROSS SCOTT? I'm puking at your lack of reading comprehension.

You can complain about this DEI shit all you want but realistically games NOT BEING PLAYABLE AFTER PEOPLE HAVE PURCHASED THEM is far more important than black people in a video game cast, shoehorned or not. We oughta focus on that stuff before worrying about "muh woek!!!!!"

They don't even care to release a patch to make it playable offline. Polyphony did that for Gran Turismo Sport.

It's Ubisoft, they don't even care to release a finished product most of the time, or utilize their older beloved IP, or not lie about the graphics their games will have at launch. lack of Offline patches are the least of their sins, but it's ironic how that's the one that will get them the most blowback.

 

[HalfScoper]

"waahh waahh big corpo bad"

Anyway nice to see a project like this in terms of preservation, I didn't come to cry about a companies decision on what to do with THEIR game.

 

[ZeroFX]

NOT BEING PLAYABLE AFTER PEOPLE HAVE PURCHASED THEM is far more important

Yeah retard, i think the game being dead on arrival is more problematic than that happening later, cutting the problem from the root you know... Don't know who is this guy you're worshiping but have fun getting into this red herring of his.

is far more important than black people in a video game cast

Nice strawman btw.

 

[64bitmodels]

Yeah retard, i think the game being dead on arrival is more problematic than that happening later, cutting the problem from the root you know...

It's the Crew, a 2014 game. A game that's dead on arrival is AT LEAST a game that no one spent their money on, but that clearly isn't the case for The Crew judging by the outrage and movement that its server shutdown sparked.

It certainly wasn't dead on arrival, but it's dying NOW because of Ubisoft's negligence... and also people like you enabling it, getting too focused on the wrong problems in gaming while letting shit like this slide.
Entire game gets shut down and people's money down the drain but DEI is a bigger problem. Fuck outta here with that corny ass bullshit. You won't be caring about any DEI when this happens to one of the games you like.

 

[ZeroFX]

It's the Crew, a 2014 game. A game that's dead on arrival is AT LEAST a game that no one spent their money on, but that clearly isn't the case for The Crew judging by the outrage and movement that its server shutdown sparked.

Read again

i think the game being dead on arrival is more problematic than that happening later

Accessibility for you:
"i think the game being dead on arrival (with dei) is more problematic than that happening later (by being pulled)"

 

[CoolMe]

Too bad the game sux. Still cool to see something like this i guess?

 

[Marc_LFD]

the game being dead on arrival is more problematic than that happening later

People around the world enjoyed the game so calling it "dead on arrival" is disrespectful to the devs and customers who paid the full MSRP.

Here's one of them:



This online-only requirement will sadly become even more common so more games will become unplayable.

Heck, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is multiplayer-only so when Bandai shuts down the servers the game dies (unless they'd add a single player mode + offline patch... Don't count on it).



It kind of looks like shit, but wouldn't wish it'd become unplayable as developers spent time making it and then customers bought it.

And it got a physical release it wasn't digital-only:

Conserving modern games will be hard due to the publishers decision.

Sigh.

 

[ZeroFX]

People around the world enjoyed the game so calling it "dead on arrival" is disrespectful to the devs and customers who paid the full MSRP.

Another one cant read

 

[CoolMe]

I wonder whether giving the same treatment to the X360 version is possible

Srsly, i pirated it on the 360 way back when it just released, the online-only thing was a turn off for sure, but i still gave it a chance, tried many times in fact but the constant server errors always kicking me out of the game ruined it. And since i wasn't really enjoying it that much even outside of that, didn't bother with it afterwards.
Not sure if the overall experience improved or not, sp gameplay-wise..

 

[YoureALoser]

Nintendont would have have DMCA'd the project and unleash it's attack-dogs aka lawyers

Except they wouldn't because USA has laws that say this is legal.

 

[Sir Tortoise]

I'm almost puking, your campaign did nothing. And follow your own "advice".

The various avenues that are being pursued by this are actually making good progress, but (as expected) it may take longer than two months for the various legal and governmental initiatives across multiple countries to conclude. And yeah, I have already taken the actions laid out on the website and I'd encourage others interested to do the same.

 

[JORGETECH]

Shoutout to Ross Scott and StopKillingGames - The Crew's shutdown might be the best shot there is to get companies to actually provide an end-of-life plan, rather than the current default of just destroying the game you paid for. The website provides a list of ways to help depending on if you owned The Crew or not, and which country you're in, and this video goes more in-depth into the issue and potential solutions.

The StopKillingGames campaign is the first thing I've thought of when reading this article, something that everyone worried by the preservation of videogames should be aware. I wonder when is Ross going to address this new development, but I don't think it will change anything in the campaign since this was done without any endorsement from Ubisoft, actually, I didn't expect a server emulator to be released until much later.

 

[64bitmodels]

The StopKillingGames campaign is the first thing I've thought of when reading this article, something that everyone worried by the preservation of videogames should be aware. I wonder when is Ross going to address this new development, but I don't think it will change anything in the campaign since this was done without any endorsement from Ubisoft, actually, I didn't expect a server emulator to be released until much later.

The shutdown didnt happen until march and it was announced in december, so they probably got a ton of work done in 6 months

 

[JORGETECH]

The shutdown didnt happen until march and it was announced in december, so they probably got a ton of work done in 6 months

It's impressive they already have something to show then, it reminds me of the short wait between the closure of Nintendo WFC and the release of Wiimmfi. But I assume making a server emulator of a modern game like The Crew is even harder with DRM.

 

[LightBeam]

I liked the game, I played quite a lot of it back then when Ubisoft gave it for free (didn't get the expansion tho). The physics were pretty slippery for some reason but I was still able to enjoy it, the map was typically Ubisoftesque, meaning way too huge, therefore forgettable as hell but it was fun to drive through highways. The OST was pretty limited but I liked a lot of it and I still listen to some from time to time. Never tried the next entries because I don't buy Ubisoft games but I hope they did improve a lot on the inputlag and the « soap feel » of the cars.


I have some doubt that the campaign did anything, but when it comes to such online games, there's always someone trying to make a server (and it's really commandable, I'm thinking of stuff like Street Gears, Exteel, Ghost in the Shell First Assault, Ghost Recon Phantoms doesn't exist anymore sadly ... but they're making their own game now. Also Gundam Evolution)

So at least it did gave some awareness and maybe that's what pushed some people to work on that, or maybe that wasn't needed and these people would still have tried to do that, idk and that doesn't matter.

 

[Sir Tortoise]

I have some doubt that the campaign did anything, but when it comes to such online games, there's always someone trying to make a server (and it's really commandable, I'm thinking of stuff like Street Gears, Exteel, Ghost in the Shell First Assault, Ghost Recon Phantoms doesn't exist anymore sadly ... but they're making their own game now. Also Gundam Evolution)

So at least it did gave some awareness and maybe that's what pushed some people to work on that, or maybe that wasn't needed and these people would still have tried to do that, idk and that doesn't matter.

The campaign is still going and making progress, but it was never about getting a server emulator going for The Crew anyway. Its a good thing that some games have such dedicated communities that they will put in the huge amount of work to reverse engineer the game, but this is not always possible. Its only going to get rarer as well, as security and encryption get tighter. Not to mention the absolute death sentence that is game streaming.

I think The Crew would have had the emulator made regardless, its a popular game and the "server" should be relatively simple. The ideal outcome of the campaign on the other hand would be for server emulation to not require significant reverse-engineering, just release the relevant documentation and server files when support ends.

In the case of The Crew, it'd be even simpler - this didnt need to be an online game, and traces of an offline mode exist in the games data. Ubisoft could just release a patch to make it no longer require the online connection. But they're not gonna do that if they can get away with just breaking the game instead in the hopes you'll buy another.

 

[Gamemaster1379]

And all previous information will be ported over? Again Discord is a terrible place for developing and forum activity

Extremely unlikely. A server emulator is going to be reconstruction of API calls to and from. They won't have access to the original database that the company used to store information (unless all that information is stored on user's game clients/saves and the development team is going to accept that information and let it be uploaded to propagate their own databases)

Post automatically merged: Thursday at 5:16 AM

Nintendont would have have DMCA'd the project and unleash it's attack-dogs aka lawyers

Considering it's a server emulator, it's likely a white room reverse engineered API server using packet captures, which would make it original code and not valid for a DMCA.

Post automatically merged: Thursday at 5:19 AM

The shutdown didnt happen until march and it was announced in december, so they probably got a ton of work done in 6 months

That's plenty of time to get packet captures and set up a scrappy prototype. GUNDAM EVOLUTION had a similar fate. Announced in July, shutdown in November. Was plenty of time to packet capture all the nooks and crannies and set up an emulated master server.

Post automatically merged: Thursday at 5:20 AM

It's impressive they already have something to show then, it reminds me of the short wait between the closure of Nintendo WFC and the release of Wiimmfi. But I assume making a server emulator of a modern game like The Crew is even harder with DRM.

It actually depends on the DRM. If they don't bother with cert pinning, and the thing that's being emulated is mostly RESTful HTTP APIs, a dedicated team could get something going in that short of a window.