After eating it for killing The Crew, Ubisoft promises to bring offline support to The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest

Perhaps still stinging from the unexpectedly ferocious reaction to its decision to bring The Crew to a sudden, unwanted stop, Ubisoft announced today that offline modes are being developed for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest.

«We heard your concerns about access to The Crew games,» Ubisoft said via TheCrewGame on Twitter. «Today, we want to express our commitment to the future of The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. We can confirm an offline mode to ensure long term access to both titles, stay tuned for more news in the next months.»

We heard your concerns about access to The Crew gamesToday, we want to express our commitment to the future of The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. We can confirm an offline mode to ensure long term access to both titles, stay tuned for more news in the next months. pic.twitter.com/KDlz8h09OTSeptember 10, 2024

The Crew 2 is six years old and wasn't great at launch but has enjoyed years of follow-on support; The Crew Motorfest is much newer yet has a much smaller player base on Steam, possibly because it spent more than six months as an Epic Games Store (and Ubisoft Store) exclusive. Whatever the case, there's not what you'd call a huge community of players out there for either game.

But the decision to commit to offline modes for both games probably isn't driven solely by player numbers, but rather emerges from the unpleasantness (and potential future unpleasantness) sparked by the shutdown of the original Crew earlier this year. Ubisoft delisted The Crew in December 2023 and rendered it unplayable as of April 1, 2024, saying the move was necessitated by «server infrastructure and licensing constraints.»

But rather than quietly accepting that boilerplate justification as Ubisoft presumably expected, The Crew fans pushed back hard, launching a "Stop Killing Games" initiative that seems more serious and well-considered than the name might at first suggest. A petition to the European Union hasn't yet attracted the one million signatures