This is one of the first "successful" live service games from the 8th generation to be rendered unplayable because of its always online design, even though there was no reason it had to be that way. Forza Horizon 5, for example, has a very extensive live service component but is playable offline. The Crew was designed with an expiration date either because of laziness or an intentional desire to stop people playing.

I actually bought the Crew on some deep sale and haven't played it so I guess I will, but this is why I am very leery of buying games that are always online. I have a stable online connection but as someone who likes to play old games and mostly doesn't care about multiplayer this just sucks and I'm not sure why more people don't get angry about it. Ubisoft is flogging a new version of The Crew right now and they won't get a sale from me except at a very, very, steep discount because it's more of a rental than a purchase. You can argue that all games (especially digital games) are, but I can still play OG Forza Horizon whenever I want.

So many Ubisoft games require online servers now, a huge chunk of their catalog will be wiped out over time.

And it's going to happen to games that people care about a lot more than The Crew.

The gacha and MMO communities be like First Time?

@efesell: Gacha games are pure exploitation and are generally intended as pretty temporary fixes. And MMOs are different because they HAVE to be online only. Of course there are lots of games that were multiplayer focused that have shut down and that's just the nature of playing multiplayer focused games.

The issue here is that this is a game that absolutely did not have to be online only. As I pointed out with Forza Horizon there are lots of games in the same genre with similar online features that aren't.

Also most Gacha games and MMOs (these days) are free to play. So they aren't asking you to pay cash up front for a game that will go offline (though of course you do spend money on stuff in them.)

Someone who bought The Crew yesterday has 3.5 months to play it before it's gone, and it has been on sale a lot this year so they were actively pushing a purchase for a game they planned to shut down soon.

I actually skipped this series due to the always online DRM. After 9 long years, my stubbornness has finally paid off. Mwahahaha!

Naw, this just sucks. Sorry to anyone who was a fan of this game.

They needed those Crew servers for Skull & Bones. It's the only way the game could ship. That's what's been taking them so long.

I don't agree with this. I believe once a game is made to be online, then there should always be a server in place to support it, otherwise don't make it online. At the same time, I get why they are doing this. They have The Crew 2, which is basically the first game on steroids, minus the hilarious Fast & Furious like storyline.

@av_gamer: Keeping a server in place forever is expensive and gets more expensive and difficult over time as the technology gets more out of date and hade to maintain. Obviously if a company goes out of business it can't do this (though Ubisoft clearly isn't) but even if they don't it's not necessarily feasible long term. It might be more feasible now with Virtual Machines but there are still security vulnerabilities to be dealt with and other issues. At some point you're just spending a bunch of money to maintain a server that very few people are using.

And there's a Crew 3 now.

I wish this game had a patch to be played offline for players to relive their fun memories or those never played it before.