Among the major releases over the coming months is The Crew Motorfest, Ivory Tower’s open-world racing follow-up to The Crew 2. It releases on September 14th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC, and offers several changes over the series’ formula. Here are 15 of the biggest differences between The Crew Motorfest and The Crew 2.
Over 600 Vehicles at Launch
The Crew Motorfest launches with over 600 vehicles, compared to The Crew 2, which had more than 500. It’s not bad, considering something like Forza Horizon 5 offered over 500 cars (though that number has increased drastically since its release). The Crew Motorfest offers vehicles from over 50 manufacturers and across several archetypes like Drift, Hypercars, Rally, Drag and more. However, like its predecessor, it’s not limited to cars – you also have bikes, Quads, Powerboats and Planes to commandeer.
New Additions
While it’s nice that some vehicles carry over, what about new additions? Ivory Tower has confirmed +80 new cars, brands or vehicle types, including new quad bikes and SSVs. New vehicle additions include the Toyota Supra, Lotus Evija, GMC Hummer EV and even electric cars from Porsche and Nissan. Overall, you can look forward to brands like Aston Martin, BMW, Audi, Chevrolet, Ford, Lamborghini, Porsche and much more to make an appearance.
Collection Import
One area that The Crew Motorfest has over Forza Horizon 5 is that you don’t have to earn vehicles that were already in the previous game from scratch. Almost anything unlocked in The Crew 2 will carry over into Motorfest. While you can import cars and vanities, you could start from scratch and do so later.
Of course, not every vehicle – which includes certain car manufacturers, jet sprints, hovercrafts and helicopters – is available in The Crew Motorfest at launch, but it could be added later. Collection Import covers eligible vehicles released before Season 9 of The Crew 2, but some of those released in the same season are coming in December with Season 2 of Motorfest. And no, unlocking a vehicle in Motorfest doesn’t make it available in The Crew 2.
O’ahu in Hawaii
The Crew 1 and 2 offered massive scaled-down versions of the United States to explore. In the first game, it could take 45 minutes to drive from coast to coast (and if servers went down, you lost a bunch of progress, but that’s neither here nor there). The Crew 2 persisted in this fashion but leaned into different vehicle types and disciplines to mix things up.
With The Crew Motorfest, players will explore only one location – O’ahu in Hawaii, which is also scaled down. As such, the square footage is way less than The Crew 2. Nevertheless, it offers a variety of different racing sites, from the city of Honolulu to beaches and even a volcano. Before you scream, “Just like Forza Horizon,” don’t worry – it’s kind of the point.
Improved Handling
If you played The Crew 2, you may remember the overall handling and physics to be a little on the iffy side. With The Crew Motorfest, Ivory Tower has re-spec’d its vehicles to accommodate a new physics model. Each one will feel unique, and you must consider different terrain types, like mud, asphalt, dust, etc. when choosing a vehicle.
Thus far, based on the closed beta, the handling is already much better, though the Drift physics seemingly needs more work. While still not quite at the level of the Forza titles, players have reported that the driving is a big improvement over The Crew 2.
Festival Area
New to The Crew Motorfest, further nudging it towards the Forza Horizon clone status, is the Festival Area. There’s only one, and it offers several functions, including an off-road racing area, a track for Drag races, and more. You can ride on a double loop for some reason, but it looks fun. One of the biggest new additions is the Car Meet, where other players can interact and check out their vehicles. There are also weekly contests for comparing customization jobs.
Playlists vs Disciplines
The Crew 2 focused its racing activities on four Disciplines: Street Race, Pro Racing, Off-Road and Freestyle. Each Discipline had different activities, like Jetsprints and Monster Trucks in Freestyle to Hovercrafts and Motocross in the Off-Road Discipline.
The Crew Motorfest opts for Playlists, which focus on different themes, like Electric Odyssey (seemingly centred on the new electric vehicles), Made in Japan (focused on Street Racing and Japanese sports cars), Off-Roading Addict and Vintage Garage (where players progress through different eras of vehicles, starting from the ’50s). There are 15 Playlists at launch, each with unique challenges and rewards, including a Special Edition vehicle upon completing one.
Rewind
If the Forza comparisons aren’t enough, The Crew Motorfest features a Rewind function. It’s hardly new for racing games (look at GRID Legends and F1 23), but it was surprisingly absent in The Crew 2. You could go reset your position with Back on Track, losing time in the process. Going back several seconds and requesting a do-over on certain sections wasn’t possible.
Demolition Royale and Grand Race
For new modes, The Crew Motorfest offers Demolition Royale and Grand Race. The former is a Last Team Standing style race with 32 players divided into eight crews. It’s a little more straightforward than Forza Horizon 5’s The Eliminator since you essentially slam into enemy cars and pick up bonuses, like shields and damage boosts, while also charging your Ultimate.
There’s also the Grand Race, a free-for-all race where 28 players compete for supremacy. While not quite as chaotic as Riders Republic’s races, the higher player count makes it busier.
Seasons
When The Crew 2 launched, it embraced the Season Pass model with 25 additional vehicles, of which three were exclusive, a location for your collection, two avatar outfits and a 20 percent discount for the in-game store. It would adopt a seasonal approach with the Battle Pass-esque Motor Pass, adding new Summits, modes and vehicles to unlock.
The Crew Motorfest offers a Year 1 Pass with 25 vehicles, including two new exclusives, but has planned for seasons from the outset. The focus is on different “car culture” fantasies, with professional drivers, tuners and more showing up as guests, and you can expect new activities. Seasons last four months, with Season 1 focusing on the biggest car brands in the world, while Season 2 is about Hoonigan and its vehicles.
Difficulty Settings
Viewing the difficulty settings from The Crew 2 when it launched is a trip. It’s a long list of “no’s” for everything from multiple difficulty levels to aim assist (for all the….aiming you do in a race?). By comparison, The Crew Motorfest is leagues better. Experience Type allows you to set the AI difficulty to Amateur, Intermediate or Expert (with XP bonuses ranging from zero to 25 percent extra). You can set the difficulty of events, Auto Braking and Auto Steering, turn Rewind and Nitro on or off, toggle Steering Assist for airplane handling and more. It’s not the most in-depth, but still a massive improvement.
Accessibility Settings
In the same vein, the accessibility settings are a big jump forward from The Crew 2. Subtitles, color-blind modes, text size, racing line opacity, changing button holds to presses, camera shake, a high contrast HUD, motion blur – it’s all in Motorfest. Also, while The Crew 2 allowed partial button remapping (some controls couldn’t be changed, regardless of platform), The Crew Motorfest supports full button remapping for all peripherals.
Over 800 Car Parts
Ivory Tower confirmed that The Crew Motorfest would have over 800 car parts at launch, 20 percent more than The Crew 2, with options for customizing engine sounds, from the realistic to the exotic. There are supposedly “millions” of combinations, but we’ll have to wait and see just how in-depth the customization can be.
Race Creator Mode
If there’s one feature we would have loved to see Motorfest take from The Crew 2, it’s Race Creator. Introduced as part of Season 9, it allowed players to create and share their races. It allowed for modifying settings like weather, traffic, time of day, restrictions on certain brands, and even placing up to 1000 checkpoints. Hopefully, it debuts in Motorfest sometime in the future.
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