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Ubisoft shut down the servers for its open-world MMO racing game, The Crew, on March 31, 2024. This was unfortunate news but not surprising in today’s modern age of online games having an expiration date set by developers. The Crew’s shutdown, however, sparked more than just a lawsuit that made players realize they had been buying licenses rather than copies of the game. It also sparked enough backlash to prompt Ubisoft to commit to adding offline modes for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. This caused enough uproar that Valve added a warning to Steam purchases, making it clear to players that they were buying licenses instead of copies.
Perhaps most significantly, The Crew’s shutdown was the catalyst for the Stop Killing Games Initiative. While this initiative and similar petitions continue, and the lawsuit by two Californian The Crew fans remains ongoing, a group called The Crew Unlimited (TCU) has been working hard to bring The Crew back in an old-fashioned way—by creating an emulator to run the servers.
Today, TCU achieved its goal, allowing players with a copy of the game to jump back into The Crew. If you own a copy of The Crew on PC, you should be able to set up TCU for yourself and continue playing a game that had a more significant impact on the videogame industry than it did when Ubisoft was still distributing it.
[Video: A gameplay clip showcasing The Crew’s return]
