Ubisoft’s The Crew occupied a sizable portion of the company’s E3 presser with its assertions of destroying the boundaries between single-player, co-op and multiplayer. It also revealed the game’s broad open world and support for a limitless number of players.
In a recent interview with Digital Trends, creative director Julian Gerighty revealed that, “This game started over four years ago. The game hasn’t changed, its just taken that long to get it working and working as well as we want it to be working.
“All of the concepts that we have here are concepts that the team has been working on for the last ten years. The massive open world that’s shared with hundreds of other players? That’s something that the team did for Test Drive Unlimited, which was ahead of its time.”
Gerighty also revealed that the game had been in development for the PS3 and Xbox 360 before it outgrew its boundaries. “How far ahead of its time? Well, given Ubisoft’s new obsession with shared worlds, about one generation. In fact, The Crew has a bit of a lead on its rivals, having begun life as a PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 level title before being moved over to next-gen when the project outgrew the hardware.
“It happened about a year and a half ago, where we realized we can push this a little bit further, we can push the personalization of the world, the non-procedural nature of the world, a little bit further if we do it on Xbox One and PS4.
“So our Miami is radically different from our New York, which is normal but it takes a lot of work to get it to that level of quality. And that’s only possible on this next-generation.”
The Crew is set to release in Q1 2014 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
