Here's how The Crew Motorfest has quietly overtaken Forza Horizon 5... and continues to do so

Back in 2006, Eden Games delivered a futuristic vision of the racing game. It dropped you on Hawaii’s O’ahu island, gave you over a thousand miles of roads to explore, and said “have at it”. Test Drive Unlimited was so forward-thinking that even 15 years later when Forza Horizon 5 released, you could feel its influence.

It felt for a moment as though Playground Games had refined that formula so well that the British studio had taken ownership of it: vast car collection, beautiful open world, solo and PvP activities scattered across it like so much automotive confetti. And, of course, all the awards and the lofty metascore.

But in the background, Ubisoft Ivory Tower and its Eden Games alumni – including TDU game director Stéphane Beley, now studio head at IVT – was hatching a plan. The Crew Motorfest would depart from the impressive United States world map where the series had resided for two games prior and make a significant return to Hawaii. And in doing so, month by month, update by update, it would quietly take the open world driving game crown back from the Horizon festival, whose security staff were presumably too busy ushering revellers away from marauding Mercedes AMG-Ones to notice.

How? Because unlike its great rival, Motorfest never stops evolving.

Case in point: here we are a year after launch, at IVT’s Lyon headquarters, being shown a raft of incoming updates that would pass for a sequel in most parts. It’s not just the new island, or the cops and robbers stuff that they announced back in June, either: true to its ‘Netflix for racing games’ vision, it’s also bringing new seasons to the most popular playlists.

Made in Japan has been a favourite since launch. The way it turns Hawaii into Japan with a few flicks of an artist’s brush and some clever colour grading showed what the playlist concept is really about: taking the game off in its own very particular direction, and celebrating one distinct strand of car culture for the duration of a few events.

For season two of the playlist, more neon-underlit NSXs and street tuned Skylines do battle in perpetual nighttime, this time on the freshly designed roads of Maui. But the really interesting bit kicks in once you complete the playlist: now it’s time to hunt down your rivals.

Just as the previous Crew games had ‘boss’ characters who you earned the chance to beat by completing events, Motorfest introduces new Rivals in Made in Japan Vol. 2. Rivals from the gangs you’ve been racing on the playlist appear organically in the world, not as a static event map marker. You get a ping on your UI when they’re nearby, prompting you to track them down and stay in their vicinity for long enough to challenge them to a race. Think Assassin’s Creed’s nemesis system, where super-powerful enemies roam the world map offering stern challenges and unique rewards, and then strap that nemesis into a custom Japanese import, and you’re basically up to speed.

These rivals have a hierarchy. Beat the members from each gang and you unlock the chance to track down and race their bosses, earning their vehicles with custom liveries along the way. For a game that’s already stacked with activities in its menus, it’s a smart move on IVT’s part to add an emergent element like this. Something that keeps you paying attention to the game world, and feeling like there are other racers occupying it.

That same emergent style is rampant in Chase Squad, another of Motorfest’s substantial upcoming additions. While Need For Speed Unbound’s Hot Pursuit mode offers decent laughs amidst some grindy elements, and The Crew 2’s ‘Chase’ DLC dipped only a tentative toe into cop chase territory, Chase Squad looks set to be the most feature-rich and varied take on cops and robbers racing we’ve been treated to in recent years.

There’s a police procedural feel to the action that paces out the mayhem and scratches that cop fantasy itch that bit more vigorously than most games do. First are the training sections, which much like The Crew 2’s Chase content see you driving around courses and smashing into boards in the name of upholding the law, for reasons it’s probably best not to dwell too deeply on.

But you can see that lessons have been learned since the last game – the courses are arranged more like a Gymkhana run this time, encouraging a more flamboyant, driftier set of manoeuvres. Subtle things, like the placement of those boards you’re smashing through, have been fine-tuned for a better drive. Something that feels like more plausible police training.

The chases themselves are broken down into phases: first you find the perp and tail them, staying at a distance until you’re given clearance to take them down. There’s a nice tension and release to this. You’re given the time to really want to engage with your target before you’re allowed to, and that makes it all the more satisfying when the gloves come off.

IVT’s been working hard on the collision physics for this mode, making sure it feels just right when you t-bone a car and send it pinwheeling. There’s a momentary slow-mo pause on impact, then a burst of visual effects like you’re smashing into a mechanical pinata. It feels like you’d hope it would.

The elephant in Motorfest’s garage is the controversy surrounding The Crew 1’s server closure, which recently concluded access to 2014 release, leaving its remaining community understandably rather piqued. It’s an important part of Motorfest’s road map, then, that both the current game and The Crew 2 guard themselves against a similar fate. The team’s announced that access to these titles won’t be ‘switched off’ in the manner that befell the first Crew, and that they’re currently exploring solutions to make that happen.

These are the headaches that a live service game must contend with, aside from the small matter of offering constant content updates and ensuring rock-solid stability all the while. But what’s particularly striking about Motorfest is how it’s carrying momentum, adding not just new vehicles or token point-to-point races, but new concepts, new modes. A new island. It’s what a live service racer should look like, and while Forza Horizon 5’s bonnets might reflect the light with that touch more polish, for sheer enjoyment, depth, and variety, it’s being left in Motorfest’s wake.

The Crew Motorfest Year 2 kicks off this November, beginning with Season 5 and the introduction of the Maui map, which is free to all players.