The Crew Motorfest Review

The Crew is a series I’m very familiar with; since its inception back in 2014 I’ve spent countless hours driving across the scaled down versions of mainland America. For the third entry into Ubisoft’s open-world racer series, The Crew Motorfest takes players to Hawaii, focusing instead on a much denser, detailed environment rather than the scaled down ‘Murica. Whilst not as drastic a tonal shift as The Crew 2 was from its predecessor, can Motorfest provide an enjoyable cruise through one of the world's most beautiful locations?

It’s inevitable that Motorfest will draw comparisons to the Forza Horizon series; after all, they’re both festivals centred around vehicles racing through stunning, serene locations (Horizon 4 even managed to make the UK look half-decent) awash with colour and featuring more blaring tunes than an Ibiza rave. However, I shall do my best not to compare the two!

Visually, The Crew Motorfest looks fantastic on current gen hardware. Cars are incredibly modelled both externally and internally, and the island of Hawaii is far more fleshed out than the often barren stretches of land found in the previous games. It’s not hyperrealistic, nor is it overly stylised like Need for Speed Unbound, everything has a fine level of detail touched up with an impressive lighting system.

Although you won’t find me shouting from the rooftops about how great the included music is, I have to admit that the drum and bass/techno-heavy soundtrack is very fitting for the theme of the game. And from quad bikes to tuners, every vehicle sounds authentic and powerful, making the overall presentation very aesthetically pleasing. If you’re a PlayStation 5 player, though, turn off the controller audio. That constant metallic rattling sound is insanely irritating.

It’s not entirely smooth sailing, unfortunately, as texture and object pop-in are frequent, and more than once I found the game locked up for a few seconds at a time. Luckily, none of this was experienced when playing online races, so my cries of “that wall came out of nowhere!” when I careened off course into someone's house was not a valid excuse for my lack of skill. In fact, the online seems fairly stable as of writing. Since Motorfest requires a constant online connection to play (boooo!) I’ve luckily yet to experience one instance of being disconnected and booted back to the main menu (yaaay!).

With over 600 vehicles (including hypercars, biplanes, rally bikes, and powerboats) all fully customisable and upgradeable, there’s no shortage of collecting and tuning to do. Despite this, it has to be said that Motorfest doesn’t entirely stand out from the rest of the pack, with very little innovation in its design. Still, this is hardly a genre that can reinvent the wheel for each new major release. One unique feature it does have, though, is the Playlists….

In many racing titles, players will often stick to one vehicle, kit it out with all manner of upgrades and blast past the competition. What I loved about Motorsport is it gives players the chance to drive all sorts of vehicles, thanks to the Playlists. These are a series of events that range from a whirlwind tour of some of the best cars Japan has to offer to a scenic tour of Hawaii’s stunning vistas using rugged off-roaders. There are 15 Playlists as of now, each with a good number of races in each one, and as long as you have the required vehicle, you’re able to play them in any order. These aren’t short events either, with some lasting upwards of 15 minutes until you cross the finish line!

Summits are another type of event that change on a weekly basis, where the main objective is to earn the highest point total possible in each of the nine events. Simply finishing each race or challenge nets you some decent rewards, but build up that point total and you’ll unlock some exclusive prizes depending on your final leaderboard position. In addition to Summits, the online modes — Demolition Royale and Grand Race — adds a bit more variety to the mix. The Demolition Royale pits eight teams of four players against each other to be the last team standing, in a battle royale inspired event. Drop in, collect power-ups scattered across the contained area, and ram some cars! Grand Race is a simple point-to-point race turned up to 11. You’ll select three vehicle types and race against 27 other players on some surprisingly long tracks. As you proceed, your vehicle will automatically switch up for the next section of the race. Fast, frantic, and definitely a lot of fun!

Car handling has been vastly improved over The Crew 2, although still not amazing by any means. It’s still very much an arcade racer, and every vehicle feels much more weighty and doesn’t control like you’re driving on ice. I hopped into the previous title and went for a spin to see just how different they felt, and found it difficult to get to grips with the second title due to how loose each car felt. Motorfest may not entirely nail driving physics — especially with driving assists turned off — and oversteering can be difficult to adjust, but the rewind feature allows players to rectify any unfortunate errors. I personally recommend turning at least a few of the assists on, as the arcadey nature of the game shines brightest with a little help. There is variety in how some car types handle, though, so don’t expect to smoothly drift around a bend with an F1 powerhouse!

AI racers (depending on the difficulty chosen) make smart use of nitrous and cutting corners where it makes sense to. They certainly put up a fight and don’t often make mistakes. They can sometimes just charge ahead and it becomes seemingly impossible to ever catch up on the highest difficulty, but the “normal” skill level feels like the best balance between casual Sunday drivers and “Hey, was that Dominic Toretto that sped past me?”

The Crew Motorfest is easily the best title in the series. Although the previous games’ idea of a scaled-down version of America was great, there is so much more to see in this gorgeous rendition of Hawaii. A good amount of content will keep players busy for a while, and with the constantly updating Summits, and new rewards included in each one, it’s definitely a game I’ll be hopping into a couple of times a week, long after I’ve exhausted all the single-player content.