The shutdown of The Crew‘s online servers was contentious to say the least, helping to kickstart the Stop Killing Games campaign. Unlike some online games, which remain playable in single-player mode indefinitely, Ubisoft’s open-world racer was shuttered entirely due to its always-online requirement, meaning that those who had paid good money for it were left with nothing but memories and broken dreams. But now, thanks to a group of dedicated modders, The Crew is revving up for a return with a new, albeit unofficial, version.
Project lead Whammy4 has announced that the The Crew Unlimited Launcher will release on September 15. As the project functions as a server emulator, you’ll need to own The Crew in order to play it, and the team are offering access for free. This initial version of TCU will allow you to play the racing game in offline mode, though online functionality is planned to arrive down the road.
“We were trying everything we could, anything to preserve the game. We eventually came to the conclusion that writing a Server Emulator for The Crew was the best and only solution,” says a dev blog on the project’s site. “This would allow us to effectively implement both an Offline Mode and an Online Mode back into the game, Offline Mode simply being a local server running on your computer while playing the game. Your local server, your local savegames, your game. No one will ever be able to take this away from you now.”
This is a grand accomplishment for the TCU team, which has put countless hours into resurrecting the racer. The good news is that they won’t have to do this for The Crew 2, since it’ll be getting an official offline mode a little later down the line.
The Crew is just one of several games to be rendered unplayable via the shutdown of its online services. BioWare’s Anthem, for example, is shutting down at the beginning of next year. As far as we know, no-one’s currently working to preserve it.
Could Ubisoft somehow block TCU’s release? Potentially. But considering you have to own a copy to play and that the team aren’t charging for their work could ensure its survival.
While you wait for The Crew to rise again, why not keep yourself occupied with the best open world games or, if you want to save your money, the best free Steam games?
Want to chat about The Crew, digital preservation, or games and hardware in general? Head to our community Discord server, which we won’t be shutting down at short notice.