The Crew Motorfest | Switch 2 Impressions

Open world racing on the go - sorta

• Features
• Nintendo

Győző "FairyEmpire" Baki

52 seconds ago

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The best episode of Ubisoft‘s racing franchise just keeps getting better – throughout the years, it has received some absolutely bonkers content updates such as a wild NASCAR series, a full-blown track editor and a wild Tomb Raider crossover. Sounds like the best time for it to hit Nintendo‘s latest hybrid console.

So, how does The Crew Motorfest handle itself on Switch 2, and how’s the game nowadays? Will it be another miracle port by the French publisher? Let’s find out!

Here with my crew

Back in 2023, I myself reviewed the third entry in Ubisoft‘s open world racing franchise, The Crew. Trading the vast recreation of the United States for much more exotic Hawaiian landscapes, the game took plenty of pages from the Forza Horizon textbook, as it offered a much more festival-like presentation. Still, it did carry over the previous entry’s unique aspects, such as the presence of boats, planes and more that players can transform into at any point in the open world. All in all, I’ve found it to be the strongest entry in the franchise yet, especially because of the extremely memorable and unique playlists it offered – despite a somewhat convoluted progression system and some cluttered menus.

A whopping three years passed since then, and support for the game has not slowed down at all. Multiple open world islands have been added, expanding the playable area quite dramatically. There’s countless new events and dozens of new cars. Brand new police chase modes, whole new RC car events which can even be used in the open world, a track editor, all the way down to the latest – a frankly bonkers Tomb Raider DLC where we get to explore exotic islands, tombs, solve puzzles and find treasures while driving a vehicle. No, really. Say what you want about Ubisoft‘s games, but their post-launch support tends to be quite extraordinary – and The Crew Motorfest is one of the better examples at that indeed.

Sorta Horizon, sorta portable

The elephant in the room for The Crew Motorfest is the game being always online, as of today. The previous game, The Crew 2, was eventually patched to receive an offline mode, but it’s safe to assume that as long as this installment is getting active support, the online-only requirement is set to stay. With the Switch 2 serving as a perfect portable device for many, playable comfortably even while on a commute, this game is quite difficult to play reliably outside of a stable home network. That is honestly a shame, and it would have been nice to have some sort of offline mode – my 24+ hours of flights from LA and back to try the latest Call of Duty would have certainly been easier to deal with.

On the flipside, speaking of saves, by logging into your Ubisoft Account you will instantly access your cross-platform save, letting you carry over whatever progression and unlocks you achieved in the game on other platforms. Indeed, I could immediately jump onto my Xbox save with all the countless cars unlocked, the events I’ve beaten and so forth – whereas, naturally, the ownership of individual DLCs boils down to the console itself, so having bought a car DLC on PlayStation years ago does not warrant you a free extra copy on Switch 2. Likewise, this can become an issue if you started, say, the NASCAR racing series on Xbox but you do not own on Switch 2 – you don’t get to continue it.

Open world bonanza

The game is limited to 30FPS on Switch 2 both in docked and handheld mode. That is a bit of a shame, but it wasn’t that long ago that we used to play these very games and Forza Horizon at such framerate on other consoles too – and such a forgiving arcade racing model does, in fact, work alright with such a framerate. While there are some occasional stutters and some minor pop-in, rest assured that the performance and visuals of this game are just quite stunning for the Switch 2.

Exploring the open world and transforming into a different kind of vehicle on the fly is as smooth as ever. Races with a lot of drivers on track and on screen don’t suffer from slowdowns. All this without sacrificing much of the visual candy this game is known for. With a clear image thanks to a 1080p resolution, high quality assets and good looking textures, Ubisoft have once again delivered a gorgeous open world experience for Nintendo‘s console, despite the fact this is yet another game where the target hardware was way stronger than the Switch 2.

A great open world arcade racer that feels right at home on Switch 2

As said, the game has proper cross-progression, but it doesn’t seem to feature full cross-play in all modes. Players can access all custom tracks and race with other players in most modes, though a few playlists are limited to the Switch 2 pool only for some reason. Lastly, if the lack of analog triggers on the most controllers bothers you: it really shouldn’t. Such an arcade romp plays just fine even without that.

The Crew Motorfest is the best installment of this franchise yet, and the years of quality support it got manage to elevated the experience to quite impressive heights.