It took place on the contiguous United States where players played as Alex Taylor (Troy Baker), an aspiring street racer from Detroit who wished to join the ranks of the 5-10, a racing crew formed by his brother Dayton. After Dayton was betrayed and murdered by a fellow racer by the name of Dennis "Shiv" Jefferson (Jason Spisak), Alex got framed for the crime by corrupt FBI Special Agent Bill Coburn (D.C. Douglas). After spending five years in prison, another FBI agent named Zoe Winters (Amy Rosoff) freed him to use him as an undercover agent, sending Alex back into the 5-10 to infiltrate the organization and bringing the two men responsible for Dayton's murder and Alex's subsequent false imprisonment to justice.
The game* received an expansion called Wild Run on November 17, 2015. Focusing on a multiplayer racing festival held throughout the United States called The Summit, with its primary hub located at Bonneville Salt Flats, it expanded on off-road racing across the United States and introduced motorcycles to the game, as well as dragsters, drift cars, and monster trucks. There was also a massive graphical overhaul made available to everyone upon its release. A second expansion, Calling All Units, was released on November 29, 2016, allowing players to play as the cops with a variety of weapons such as EMPs. Since Alex Taylor is a street racer and it wouldn't make sense for him to be a cop, players instead play as new recruit Clara Washington when they are in police cars. After Calling All Units was released, Wild Run was delisted and was included with the second expansion as a bonus. Those who purchased Wild Run before its delisting got free Crew Credits (the game's premium currency) for their troubles.
The base Xbox One version of the game was free for Xbox Live Gold members from June 16 to July 15, 2016, as part of the platform's "Games with Gold" program. The Windows version of the game followed suit on Ubisoft Club (formerly uPlay) from September 14 to around mid-October.
A sequel called The Crew 2 was released in 2018, adding boats and planes to the gameplay and featuring a redesigned United States compared to the first game. A second sequel, The Crew Motorfest, was released in September 2023, switching locales to just the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. On December 14, Ubisoft delisted the game from all platforms and announced that the game's servers would close on March 31, 2024, rendering the game unplayable. The servers went offline as planned on that date.
Not to be confused with the short-lived comic series or the comedy film.
The Crew contained examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly Low Level Cap: The Driver Level was capped at 60 (it was 50 before Calling All Units). Players probably hit that level at the end of the story mode, or even well beforehand if they did a lot of skills early on.
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: This having been a game where players drove all over the USA, the empty roads stood out quite a bit in larger cities, especially if you've been there before. The traffic was never heavy even in places where by all rights you should have trouble even squeezing a car in.Ross Scott: ...I realize this is the case in every major city, but in New York especially, the traffic density is amusing. I don't think there are ever this few cars on the road in New York without something involving the National Guard.
- Achievement System: Along with the standard achievement systems that are dependent on the platform the game is played on, as well as the Ubisoft Club rewards system, The Crew had its own internal awards system where players were rewarded for completing various in-game side tasks. Completing them earned players "awards points", which give out payment bonuses of "bucks"note based on a percentage after completing missions, skills, and stunts. Completing certain packs of sixteen awards also gave players special Vanity License Plates with either real state license plate designs (without having to buy a car from a dealer for a "common" plate) or designs based on other countries' plates.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The price of stat points in bucks was doubled from 50,000 to 100,000 after Wild Run's release. However, this did not apply to Crew Credits.
- Artistic License – Cars: All cars were depicted in left-hand drive form, even when left-hand drive examples of certain cars are rare, outright one-offs (e.g. Mazda RX-7 Spirit R),About that one-off or just don't exist (e.g. Nissan Skyline GT-R).Here's why
- Artistic License – Geography: Apart from the U.S. being condensed and slightly simplified:
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus showed that Shiv was apparently born in "Austria, Germany". Austria is a sovereign country, not a city in Germany.
- Randalls and Wards Island was misnamed as Rikers Island, a pain for those familiar with the Big Apple.
- But perhaps the most egregious examples included the Colorado River going eastwards instead of south towards Baja California in Mexico, as well as the presence of St. Julian's Peak, a fictional mountain in the Rockies between the game's version of Montana and Utah.
- Beyond the Impossible: The older cars, such as the Hotrods (based on the Ford Model A) and the late-'60s muscle cars, should have been immune to the cops' EMP blasts and "Speed Hacks" because they have no electronic components, right? Wrong.
- Big Applesauce: New York City was the main city for the East Coast zone, and story-wise it was the first major non-Midwest city that Alex goes to in the game. In the story, he went there to help Eric Tsu, the zone's V4, to repay his debts.
- Big Bad: Shiv, the leader of the 5-10s and the one responsible for Dayton's murder and Alex's imprisonment.
- The Big Easy: New Orleans was one of the South zone's major cities. The Superdome even made a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo (which was odd considering its then-sponsored name of Mercedes-Benz Superdome).
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Bigfoot appeared as an Easter Egg in the game, which unlocked an award if Alex found him wandering in the Northern Cascades.
- Bowdlerization: Some of the in-game radio's songs were censored in order to keep a lower rating.
- Captain Ersatz: Used heavily for many real landmarks with sponsored or trademarked names in the game's cities. Las Vegas's casino resorts were the worst offenders.
- Car Fu: The entire point of the takedown missions was to continuously ram the enemy car until they stopped.
- Character Tiers: In-Universe example; the members of the 5-10 were ranked by the "V" system, with tattoos to indicate their rank. Official members started at just "V", which were just mook chauffeurs. "V2" or "V-Twin" was the second rank, and controlled a major city. "V4" ("4 Block" or "4 Banger") was third and controlled a whole zone's faction. "V6" were the "Hard Six" that represented the elite members of the crew, and finally the "V8" was the nationwide leader of the whole club. Alex had to climb through the ranks, starting from getting his 5-10 ink that he was trying to get before his brother was killed.
- Cool Bikes: Added in Wild Run. They were bought in St. Louis.
- Cool Cars: Bonus points go for the Performance and Circuit spec cars.
- Collection Sidequest:
- This game had players hunting down abandoned wrecks. Completion resulted in a new car (the HotRod HuP One in all the specs except for Raid, for which a fictional buggy took its place). It was implied that you're scavenging parts from the wrecks to build the new car, thus giving an in-game explanation. It's kind of like a certain other open-world MMO racing game.
- There were also various landmarks to find, marked with an icon that resembled the Washington Monument. Watching the cutscenes gave players some experience and cash, and counted towards progress for awards.
- Competitive Balance: Each of the six specs available was best suited for certain situations.
- Fullstock: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. They were just the stock production cars players got directly from the dealers. No nitro, no upgrades, and no customization save for the basics: color, stickers, interiors, license plates, and rims. Unless you wanted to get your Fullstock award set done, you would've wanted to switch to another spec.
- Street: Unlocked in Detroit after the prologue, this was the first spec unlocked in the game, with basic upgrades. Nothing too flashy. The Street Tuner was found in the Mexican Town district.
- Dirt: Unlocked in New York at Level 10, this spec was best suited for dirt roads, as well as gravel and snowy ones; basically, any road that wasn't paved. However, it could also handle asphalt and off-road quite well. Essentially, the Jack of All Stats. The Dirt Tuner was found along the shores of west Brooklyn.
- Performance: Unlocked in Miami at Level 20, this spec heavily tuned the car to maximize its performance on asphalt roads, but is flat-out terrible off-road. The Perf Tuner was found in the Little Haiti district.
- Raid: Unlocked in Las Vegas at Level 30, this spec made the car near-godlike off-road, and made it a Mighty Glacier for better or for worse. Like the other specs, Raid cars can also handle roads, however, their top speeds were usually among the slowest. The Raid Tuner was found next to the Ringmaster Hotel and Casino (a Captain Ersatz of Circus Circus) on the north end of the Strip.
- Circuit: Unlocked in Los Angeles at Level 40, this was the final spec unlocked in the game: it transformed the car into a professional race car with unthinkable asphalt grip and the highest stats in the game, but had the lowest durability among all car specs. While it was stated in the game that this spec was illegal to drive on open roads, the vehicles of this spec could be driven anywhere without risking a police pursuit largely to avoid annoying the player. The Circuit Tuner was found in Griffith Park, accessible from a road in Hollywood leading to the tuner underneath a hill next to the Hollywood Reservoir.
- Wild Run introduced three more specs:
- Monster Trucks: Big tires equals big stunts. Used for special stunting events, players could control how they flipped in the air. The Monster Tuner was found just northwest of Las Vegas.
- Dragsters: Ridiculously fast, but obviously meant to be driven in only straight lines. Manual transmission was mandatory for this spec's events. The Drag Tuner was found in San Francisco, of all cities, between North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf.
- Drift Cars: Made for sliding around corners easily, whether they were on slick city streets or downhill mountain roads. This spec was of course used to get massive points in drift events. The Drift Tuner was found in Chicago at the Chicago Airport district.
- It should be noted that police cars use all of the above specs except for Fullstock, Dragsters, and Drift.
- Destroy the Evidence: After arriving just after Dayton was murdered and Shiv left, Agent Colburn picked up the gun Shiv left behind on purpose and did a quick wipe on his pant leg. He was also handling the gun with his bare hand, which would put his own fingerprints on as well.
- Developer's Foresight: The Free Look Button allowed players to get up very up close and personal. Amazingly, the insides of the cars were fully detailed, down to legible text on equipment (an especially hilarious CMOF was found on a fire extinguisher made by the Burnin'Ass company, located at 666, Higway [sic] to Hell, and whose logo is a stick-figure Man on Fire; furthermore, their phone number is 66 66 66 66 66 66 & their website is http://burnbabyburn.com/disco_inferno; the label on another fire extinguisher mounted in the Pagani Zonda R declares it to be made by a firm located in the obscure Southern Italian town of Sava (with correct postal code) and has usage instructions in slightly-misspelled but grammatically-correct Italian.)
- Dirty Cop: Bill Coburn, whom Zoe suspected to be in league with Shiv. He helped Shiv become the 5-10 "V8" by covering up his murder of Dayton, throwing the blame onto the victim's brother, and looking the other way on their various trafficking operations in exchange for being paid off.
- Down L.A. Drain: The game had the Los Angeles River, of course, in its representation of LA. Bonus points for your introduction to Vincent: he worked as a stunt driver on a movie filming in the LA River.
- Downloadable Content: The game originally shipped with a Season Pass that enabled access to four packs (the Extreme Car, Speed Car, Vintage Car, and Raid Car packs), which were also separately purchasable. It also had some free updates. In 2015, Wild Run was released, which added three new car specs, more cars, motorcycles, a big monthly meet-up called "The Summit", and a new graphical engine/weather system (that part was free for everyone). In 2016, the police chase-oriented Calling All Units was released, which added police cars, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010/Rivals-like abilities, and crates scattered across the map for racers to deliver and cops to hunt down. Wild Run was included with Calling All Units.
- Duels Decide Everything: The 5-10s raced for enjoyment and to "settle what needs settling". Alex used the latter statement against Shiv to take the V8 spot via one last race, rather than simply shooting him.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Compared to its sequels or even its first expansion Wild Run, The Crew (and Calling All Units) felt less like Ubisoft's version of the Forza Horzion series and more like their own take on the Need for Speed games, especially that series' plot-driven entries. There were also no boats or planes to drive or fly here; just cars, trucks, and bikes.
- Everytown, America: What almost all the towns in the game are generically represented as since they all use similar layouts.
- Excuse Plot: You've been framed for the murder of your brother. Now work your way up a gang and find out the people responsible by driving all over the USA.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: The first game was a street racing game in the vein of Need for Speed. 2 and especially Motorfest resemble Forza Horizon set across the entire Continental United States (2) or Oʻahu (Motorfest), with planes, boats, and bikes.
- Fragile Speedster: Performance cars, which were fast but had low durability and were nearly useless off-road. Circuit took it up to eleven and added a touch of Glass Cannon; they were lightning fast and grippy, but could not handle dirt roads and were even more fragile.
- Frame-Up: The plot kicked off as right after Dayton was shot dead, the killer (Shiv) dropped the pistol used and drives off. The FBI agent who was in on it (Coburn) arrived quickly, picked up the gun, and used it as evidence against Alex, despite Alex not having touched it.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The camera quickly cutted to Alex in the car reacting in horror just as Dayton was shot.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Eric Tsu was seen as a loose cannon with a mean streak, even among other 5-10s. When Alex met him, he was even more unhinged because a lot of money under his care disappeared and the upper management had just about enough, so he got increasingly crazed trying to earn enough money to pay back the 5-10 bosses before they came for his throat.
- Hollywood New England: Most everything north-northeast of New York City, and it was fittingly all rural with a few small towns and townships. Oddly, it was mostly Maine; as for the other New England states:
- Massachusetts was only Cape Cod, Provincetown, and Salem (Boston was egregiously left out).
- Rhode Island was referred to as "Ocean State" (its real-life nickname) and had the town of Newport in the game.
- New Hampshire was represented by the White Mountains and North Woods.note
- Vermont had to rely on North Woods for any sort of representation (see note), and Connecticut did not exist.
- Also, the American side of Niagara Falls was located in Maine.
- Hot Pursuit: Police cars and chases against other players were added in Calling All Units. Before the expansion was released, players could only be chased down by AI cops. Police cars were purchased in Chicago in the South Loop district.
- The Infiltration: Alex was undercover for Zoe, an FBI agent who suspected one of her own had been leveraging the 5-10 motor club to earn some money on the side while ignoring their misdeeds. Alex was offered a chance to get back at the agent who put him in prison wrongly and the guy who should have been there instead of him, and accepted without hesitation. He was able to get away with it, despite being the brother of the club's founder, because in the five years he spent in prison the old guard of the 5-10s were pushed out when Shiv became the V8.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Platinum-level car parts were by far the rarest car parts available in the game, only being accessible after reaching the Driver Level 50 cap. They were awarded by beating a score in Story Missions and Skills that were a notch higher than the Gold one, and were available from Level 40 to 60, picking one of said Levels through a mini-roulette. While all these parts gave massive performance boosts to the vehicle, obtaining all then-Level 50 car parts for one spec was a Luck-Based Mission until Calling All Units, which thanks to its improvements to the Smart Loot system, which then "just" involved a lot of grinding to get the Level 60 parts.
- Invisible Wall: Whenever Alex (the player) attempted to leave the United States and enter either Canada or Mexico, his vehicle would stall and he would respawn away from the border. Zoe would sometimes even remark on how you apparently do not find the US big enough for you.
- Invulnerable Civilians: Like in Driver: San Francisco, pedestrians would quickly dodge out of the way of your car as you approach them, and were nigh-impossible to hit. On occasions where they somehow fail to dodge or even fail to recognize your approach, hitting them is like hitting a brick wall, as it would cause the vehicle to come to a dead stop, while the pedestrian would either keep going on their merry way or finally recognize that they've been hit and run for their life.
- It's Always Spring: Inverted in the East Coast, where it was always Fall. Pretty much straight everywhere else, however.
- Jack of All Stats:
- Dirt cars, which handled dirt and asphalt roads equally but excelled at neither.
- Raid cars, which handled any kind of terrain equally well. Raid cars maintained a pretty constant top speed, which was faster than other specs off-road but slower than them on-road.
- Level Editor: While there was no instance of a track editor in the vanilla game, the Wild Run expansion included a track creator similar to the one that appeared in the Test Drive Unlimited games for impromptu races; players created point-to-point races with checkpoints, and used the result for a quick race in the open world.
- Lone Wolf Boss: Cameron "Cam" Rockport, the one who dominated the South during the story, was not allied in any way with the 5-10s; he shoved off every single attempt of theirs to take over the zone, going even as far to kill those who were sent there.
- Luck-Based Mission: Good luck getting all Level 50 parts for all specs except Fullstock, you'll need it.
- Ludicrous Precision: Roxanne said that Coburn's men are arriving in 7.2 seconds, although the cutscene introducing that escape mission felt like it took longer than that. The mission itself takes around five minutes to drive behind some hotel.
- Marathon Level: Certain faction missions lasted well over an hour (with one, which ran around the entire perimeter of the drivable United States, taking over two).
- Meaningful Name: The 5-10 motor club got its name from the California Hundred Code (510) for speeding or racing vehicles (in other words, illegal street racing).
- Microtransactions: Crew Credits; players can buy these to be able to buy cars and parts without grinding for Bucks. Players also gain one hundred thousand Crew Credits for free if they join a faction for the first time.
- Mighty Glacier: Raid cars, which were slower than the other specs but tougher and do not lose much speed off-road.
- The Mole: Subverted. Harry was suspected of being this for a period, due to running around behind Zoe and Alex's back without explaining himself. He later revealed he was doing it for the girlfriend of Alex's late brother. This, however, was also the cause of Eric Tsu's debts with the other 5-10s.
- Nerf: Downplayed after Wild Run's release. While the stat boosts from Platinum parts did not change, players were no longer guaranteed to receive a Platinum part after getting a platinum medal from a skill. Although players were also able to win customization parts as well, this was not good for those who were instead focused on having the best-performing car or bike possible.
- No Fair Cheating: Any awards for visiting various landmarks in a session. Once the player visited the landmark and viewed its cutscene, they were able to fast travel back there at any time,note but they had to drive between each of the landmarks to get the session visit awards. If they used fast travel to skip the drives, the progress always reset back to zero. Thankfully, viewing the cutscenes again to get them were not required; just a drive over the spots counted towards progress.
- Oh, Crap!: Alex got one of these moments in the outskirts of St. Louis when Troy revealed that he found out that Alex did not kill the St. Louis V2.
- Pass Through the Rings: These were present in skill challenges. The Precision Skill challenge required the player to quickly drive through a series of on-road gates, which shrunk slightly if the player got a few in a row. The Scramble Skill challenge required the player to drive into off-road targets.
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: The Calling All Units expansion added Crates that started a police chase event and provided either some bonus Bucks or a "Car Fragment" on completion, along with experience gains on par with the longer faction missions for just a fraction of the time. These were available as soon as the tutorial was over, and it was entirely possible to reach the level cap by making crate runs before players even attempted your first story mission.
- Play Every Day: A daily login bonus of Bucks that varied depending on how you were performing in comparison to other faction members and how your faction was performing as a whole. There were daily, weekly, and monthly challenges that rewarded Bucks on completion as well.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He handled it well but it was clear that Alex was on one of these. When Zoe was about to explain her offer to Alex upon first meeting him, he didn't even let her finish before saying he was on board. If she was offering him a way out of prison and a chance to get back at the guy who put him there and killed his brother, that was all he needed to hear.
- Rubber-Band A.I.: Faction mission races seemed to have this going for it. Players could barely outrun the competition and they would always be nipping at your heels regardless of what happened to them (although the rubber band only seemed to go one way since if they got a good lead players probably didn't see them again; this bordered on The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard). Storyline missions erred more towards
It's Easy, So It Sucks! (as long as players did the various world challenges and did decently at them, their car level would rise a lot faster than the game's requirements would have them spec your vehicle). - Scenery Porn: The graphics might have been inferior compared to other racing games of its time, but that didn't stop the game from being truly gorgeous in some places, especially the bigger cities (e.g. Miami and Las Vegas), the forests in the East Coast, and the West Coast's Big Sur and Yosemite National Park. The graphics update released with Wild Run took this trope even higher.
- Shout-Out:
- Two of the Faction Missions were titled "Canyonero" and "Winter Is Coming".
- The "Silver Screen" Awards were this by definition: "Stolen", "Small Packages", "Drift King", "Vanished", "Unnatural", "We Don't Need Roads", "Covert Casino", "Down The Rabbit Hole", "Jurassic", "Hazardous".
- There were advertisements for a clothing brand called Division. In the sequel, you're also able to equip Division-brand clothing and accessories.
- Staged Shooting: When Troy ordered Alex to kill the St. Louis V2, Alex got Zoe to help him attempt to avoid doing so. After Alex took down the V2 without killing her, Zoe swiftly placed her into Witness Protection to hide her from Troy, allowing Alex to satisfy Troy's demands without actually doing so. Unfortunately, Troy found out the truth later on.
- The Syndicate: The 5-10 motor club post-Dayton. They moved a lot of contraband around the United States by running them in their cars and controlling a rather vast crime empire as a result. Aided by agent Bill Coburn's complicity in the affair (which kept the Feds from poking around in the operation).
- V8 Engine Noises:
- The game used the same V8 engine noises whenever players entered or exited the safehouse or tuner shop and during all cutscenes. While at least one-third of the car list averted this by actually being V8-powered cars, it didn't stop your Mini - or Lamborghini, for the other end of the scale - from sounding like they have race-modded Hemis in them once in a while.
- The Mazda RX-7 from the Wild Run expansion used the exact same soundbank as the Ferrari 458, whose flatplane V8 engine note is a barely passable substitute for a rotary engine at best, and just downright heretical at worst.
- Time Skip: The game did not pick up until five years after Dayton's murder passed.
- Unicorn: Appears as an Easter Egg, which will unlock an award if you find it in a field in the East Coast's "Coal State" area.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: The Freedrive Professional award set was originally unable to be completed because one of the awards was bugged. The award in question, Independence Play, required players to play the game on July 4 (American Independence Day), but players were unable to unlock the award on the day in question when it came around in 2015.
The issue was taken care of after the date and the award was made unlockable on August 4, 2015 to make up for the bug. The award was later properly unlocked on the actual Fourth of July in 2016, proving that it had been fixed. - Vanity License Plate: While they weren't customizable, players were able to get real state license plate designs for their vehicles. They were even able to use the same plate on all their vehicles to show off their home state. However, they had to either buy a car from a certain zone's dealer that has the state design they were looking for or earn award plates that had Leetspeak-esque words on them, which took a while to unlock.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Players would drive over places where people walk around, such as beaches, sidewalks, or parks. The pedestrians would evade the vehicles, but sometimes it was still possible to smack them, albeit without any gory result. Scaring them to move out of the way was also required for some awards.
- Viva Las Vegas!: Las Vegas was the main city for the Mountain States zone. Alex even flew to Vegas early on in the game for a race event in the desert; he later returned there to restabilize the 5-10's illicit trafficking there and take down Bill Coburn once and for all.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: In the Calling All Units DLC you get to control Clara Washington, whose accent was a poorly acted, stereotypical, vaguely English mess.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Justified in the ending; Alex said that shooting Shiv will just kill him, but if he beats Shiv in a road race, just like how the 5-10 solve issues, he will take his crown and Shiv will be left with nothing. Justified early in the game as well; Zoe told Alex then that if he attempted to kill Shiv, he would be going straight back to prison.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: Even though it is condensed, the United States is still huge, with the "On the Road" trailer proclaiming it to be about 1900 square miles in the game. It will take you approximately forty-five minutes to drive coast-to-coast in the fastest car in the game.
- You Have Failed Me: After finding out that Alex did not kill the St. Louis V2, Troy killed her himself, baited Alex with her truck, and sicced his crew on Alex for lying to him. Alex managed to escape, but had to find another way to get his 5-10 ink after the ordeal.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Shiv murdered Dayton in order to become the 5-10 motor club's "V8", which he did in the intervening five years that Alex wrongfully spent in prison for the crime. It helped that he had a crooked FBI agent on his side to help him leverage illegal trafficking activities that no doubt contributed to his rise to power.
- Zip Mode: Players were able to teleport to anywhere in the United States they've already visited. However, this feature was also used to visit unexplored areas quickly. Players were also able to take trains and airplanes to get to cities they had yet to visit in the game for a fee.
