The Crew 2 is the ultimate American roadtrip - Gamescom 2017 report

Last week, I was invited by several game developers to visit Gamescom 2017 in Cologne, Germany to test out their upcoming games. This is my first impression of The Crew 2, an open world race game developed by Ivory Tower and published by Ubisoft.

The Crew 2 hands-on (Gamescom 2017) - The ultimate American roadtrip?

Just as in the first game, it’s the open world of The Crew 2 that demands central stage. You can explore the whole of the United States all over again. However, this time you are no longer constricted to just four wheels. You can now drive cars, motorbikes, boats and even fly planes while travelling from coast to coast.

Switching between these different types of vehicles is quite simple: just open up your start menu and mark your favourite land, water and air vehicle. Once you’re back in the game, you can switch between them on-the-fly with a single button press.

Of course, I had to test this thoroughly. So I decided to throw my car of a cliff, switch to a stunt plane in midair and turn into a boat while I was high in the clouds. This made the developer that was looking over my shoulder quite nervous at first, but the boat smashed beautifully into the water and everything went surprisingly smooth.

Thanks to the replay-mode you can rewind the action up to 10 minutes and rewatch it from different angles. This makes for some spectacular scenes, thanks to the detailed world around you. The demo I played only showed New York and its surroundings, but this gave a pretty good impression of how varied the final game will be. In just a few minutes time you can soar between the skyscrapers of Manhattan, skim on the waves of the Hudson and conquer the hills of the national parks in the north. Combine these vistas with realistic weather effects and it’s clear that The Crew 2 has a good chance of setting a new graphical benchmark for racing games.

The open world is constantly crowded by other players, with whom you can compete in all kinds of different events. During the demo I crushed my rivals in a motocross race, in which it is essential to time your jumps very precisely. The same gentle mastery of the gas pedal is also required during the drifting event in Central Park. A fact that the unfortunate spectators on the side of the road found out quickly too.

The handling of the vehicles falls somewhere between that of an arcade racer and a simulation. Easy to pick up, but with enough room to perfect your skills. During the demo however, some vehicles felt a bit floaty. The drift car behaved like a slippery go-cart, while the speedboat felt very stiff to control. The floaty handling was a known problem in the first game however, so let’s hope that developer Ivory Tower can fix this before the release in March next year. The bikes and planes on the other hand behaved just fine and felt realistic.

All in all it looks like that the addition of water and air vehicles is the right move forward for the The Crew games. This is mostly thanks to the ease with which you can switch between the different kinds of vehicles. Add this up with the beautifully designed miniature version of the U.S. and The Crew 2 might just become the ultimate road-, boat- and flytrip.

The Crew 2 will release on March 18 for Windows PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.