The Crew 2 Gameplay Sneak Peek + Interview With One Of Their Directors
We are going live with my test drive of The Crew above and below I have an interview with the game’s narrative director. Like I said yesterday I am NOT a racing gamer, although I do love the tuna here. I came in with zero knowledge of the Crew and for anyone else that’s fine too, cause this is a whole new ballgame. And a pretty damn enjoyable one at that.
The missions all felt different and the vehicle variety is no joke, they legit have some bigass plane from 1934 that apparently actually did fly? And let’s not forget Eleanor. Gearheads will get wet for that and casual gamers will dig it for the freestyle like I did. There’s plenty to chew on here, check out the beta in late May if you’re feeling that 1/4 mile itch.
You best believe they got that American muscle in there too, aw yea.
Interview with The Crew 2 narrative director Julien Charpentier
There was a big difference between each vehicle type as far as handling, torque etc, which type was the funnest to create for this game?
That’s a difficult one, because the fact is there was some resistance even within the team to say, will we have fun with a boat? Will we have fun with a plane? And when you think about those just going in straight lines, that’s not racing. But all of them became fun through the variety.
Boats for example we have the powerboat but also the jetsprint which can do extremely swift turns, go on land for a few, and then also a hoverboat and more. The variety from power to land strategy and speed for precision, we found the differences became the soul of our game.
What was your favorite of developing the sequel?
I think we’ve done a tremendous amount of work on physics, and making the discipline inside of each vehicle. We noticed that by creating different kinds of vehicles, we created different types of players. For example I love drift, drift is my favorite thing in the world.
But my friend HATES it, absolutely hates it but loves powerboat. During playing tests we really saw that no matter what type of player you are, there is something in there for you.
I didn’t play the Crew 1 and I’m definitely a racing game simpleton, how hard was it to come up with the car-plane-boat immmediate switch function?
What was interesting was at the beginning, we were looking for just a fast way to swap vehicles. But suddenly when we created it, we realized it was not only a tool but a fun thing to do. So we pushed it forward to make it as short and free as possible.
You can go as high as you want in the air and then switch and drop right down into a boat. This is the type of thing that I would not say was on accident, but it was something that was merely a tool and became quite powerful.
Is that reward program still going on with The Crew 1? Finishing it to get more vehicles for The Crew 2?
It is still on, but it’s not about finishing The Crew it’s about certain actions that must be completed. It is a total of 18 vehicles, which is a good headstart on the competition.
For a common gamer just jumping into The Crew 2, what should they dive into first and really chew off?
One of the interesting things we created is that the first Crew was really linear and this one is really open. So once you do the intro, you can do the rest in any order. We noticed in testing that most players tend to choose the street racing first because of the familiar comfort zone.
For myself I like to do the freestyle because I can get the plane right away. Then I can go across the United States and try to find every bridge to see if I’m capable of going underneath it. We actually have a plane in there I’ve never seen before that I’m really proud of.
What was the selection process for the vehicles, choosing between cars from today and planes from the 1900’s?
It’s a complicated process because it involves a lot of people and using actual brands of the planes means we had to respect a few rules to do it. We were aiming for variety in the experience of the planes. The 1934 Gee Bee is so different from the Hornet and the others in the game.
But you will find the vehicle that suits your style of play. The freestyle mode allows you to search through and find these preferences naturally.
When it comes to the street cars what do you recommend, expensive or common?
I don’t recommend anything because as I told you, it’s up to YOU to find your own car. But mine would be Lamborghini Aventador
What was the biggest surprise during the testing phase for all these new vehicles?
The jetsprint was very cool to me. I love the fact that you have a small boat that’s extremely fast, extremely swift, that’s almost nerve racking to drive because when you do a race you have to be focused because the turns are so precise.
And this was really new to me because when you think about boats you think slow, and taking a week to turn. And this one does a turn in a split second and I really love that
What is the tracking system slash how do people talk shit in this game?
Of course we have leaderboards and those are worldwide, and you can pick between everyone on earth or just your friends. The most interesting thing is when you beat a record, your friend can choose to beat your record, OR he can choose to beat your best among all your friends, OR the best in the world. Which is a little more difficult.
We also have the highlights, because everything I do in the game is tracked. We have what we call “the Live app” and it records the last minute of everything you do. When you do a record it’ll pin your alert on the map, so everyone will always know the stakes in your Crew or for the entire world.
The Crew 2 comes out June 29th
