The Case

When The Crew originally arrived back in 2014, it caught most people’s attention for being something genuinely unique in the world of MMOs. An open world, co-operative/PVP based driving simulator. With a cohesive, albeit often very silly (I heard it on the dark web!) single player story. Rapidly gaining far more attention for persistent network issues leaving the, supposedly, busy, thriving world a barren wasteland for you to cruise around in on your own. Meaning the much touted PVP section was virtually (he he) impossible to enter. Those issues were ultimately, mostly, addressed. And the game became popular enough to warrant an expansion/quasi re-release in the form of The Crew Wild Run. Itself now having been available for more than six months, the main question remains, is it worth your money?

The Trial

In short, Wild Run took almost every complaint I had about the initial release and fixed them. Almost universally. Dirt Spec still handles like ass, though it’s at least bearable now. Although, some people seem to have no trouble with it, so maybe this (not so) humble reviewer just sucks. Meanwhile, the multiplayer part of the MMO actually, consistently, reliably works. It can still be rare to run into someone (sometimes literally) during an idle jaunt through the world. But this now stems from players congregating in certain areas than them not being in the same instance as you.

The main thing that Wild Run brings to the table, however, is the new Specs, a series of kits for your vehicles which “spec” them for certain conditions such as racing and dirt tracks, and motorbikes. The latter adds very little beyond cosmetic changes (as in riding a bike, rather than driving a car) and some minor handling differences during play. But the former does allow for some much needed endgame content, especially when coupled with The Summit. The Summit is a new PVP based competition for control of the entire world…well, continental America at least. Even when an event is played solo, your score still adds to that of your chosen faction. And ultimately affects not only your, but every other faction members’ rewards for completing missions and such.

The Specs themselves even add a lot of fun experiences on their own. Arguably the most apparent addition comes with the bikes (I know I said they added little, bear with me) and Monster Truck Spec. As both are capable of performing front and backflips, as well as flashy, show-off moves during stunts for the bikes. Such as wheelies, stoppies and pointing behind you like a pleb during jumps. That last being randomly triggered whenever you spend more than a couple of seconds in the air without trying to do a flip. They don’t really do anything apart from look cool though. The flips are far more entertaining, especially when you drive off a cliff in a mahoosive monster truck and tumble through the air like you’re made of paper, and earn stunt money to boot.

Drag Spec is about what you’d expect and is pretty much pointless in most instances. Turning is most decidedly not something a drag car was intended for. You drive in a straight line, really fast and…that’s about it actually. Though there are a few new jumps, called Long Jump, that are practically impossible to complete without using one. So coupled with The Summit, they are far from useless, simply highly specialised. And boy oh boy do they capture that sense of speed. The whole game does in fact, but Drag Spec in particular.

The last of the new Specs is Drift, which is rather interesting actually. As the name suggests, they’ll slip and slide all over the place. Way too much during the Beta actually, but far more reliably now. Making them actually quite a lot of fun to use, if you can get the hang of it. They move at a respectable speed, and can drive pretty much sideways for extended periods of time. Great from racking up stunt multipliers and just generally looking awesome. As well as, once again, adding to your Faction’s ranking if you take them into The Summit.

Along with these functional changes, a slew of graphical upgrades, and more importantly optimisations, have come along for both Wild Run and base game owners. The most obvious being rain effects, which are genuinely beautiful to behold, but a massive pain in the arse if a storm starts during a race. Much like in real life, rain slicked tarmac is not so good for driving at high speed, making almost everything handle like the dreaded Dirt Spec for the duration. But, it cannot be stressed enough, it looks beautiful. The whole game does in fact. One of the best looking games ever released. Though the draw distance could do with more than a little work.

Having said all of that, the game is far from perfect. Where most of the initial complaints have been fixed, there are some new issues which keep it from achieving its full potential. The most obvious is a complete lack of Windows 10 support, to the extent that a lot of users simply cannot run the game at all. That’s just baffling. There is also a persistent bug, which has been there since launch, affecting people across a wide range of system configs. At certain points in the map, most notably weather transitions and the boundary between one area and the next, such as between the Mountain States and the West Coast, the game stops loading. Leaving you hanging in fluffy, marshmallow wasteland of nothingness.

Ubisoft are aware of the issue, and have assured us there would be a fix incoming, yet this is still an issue to this day. Now, it can be circumvented by hitting the Back on Track command, but only to an extent. If you hit the map boundary before you do this, sometimes you will simply be stuck in nothingness, unable to do anything other than exit the game. More importantly, one should not be required to manipulate the game’s systems simply to be able to play normally, never mind the score penalty associated with using Back on Track during a mission. It is extremely frustrating, and has afflicted myself from the outset. Having said that, there are almost 100 hours of in game time logged on Wild Run, not to mention the dozens of hours I spent playing the initial release of the game for the previous review. There is a lot, a hell of a lot, there to like, making it worth coming back to despite the issues.

The Verdict

In short, as stated at the outset, The Crew Wild Run takes all of the problems with The Crew and fixes pretty much all of them. The newly revealed issues are frustrating, most notably in their persistence, but are not (quite) pervasive enough to entirely take away from the much more polished, far more solid game they are now overlaid upon. So yes, The Crew, whether base game or Wild Run, is now worth spending your money on. Though perhaps not, yet, to be recommended at full price.