Following Ubisoft’s decision to shut down The Crew’s servers earlier this year – a move made even more controversial when it began revoking players’ licensing to the game – the publisher has announced plans to prevent other entries in the open-world racing series from suffering a similar fate by retroactively introducing offline modes.
Ubisoft began delisting The Crew from digital storefronts last December, announcing it would be permanently shutting the game’s servers down on 31st March this year. Unfortunately, its always-online nature meant players didn’t just loose access to The Crew’s multiplayer elements when the day came – all its single-player content became unavailable too.
The controversy surrounding Ubisoft’s decision led to revitalised discourse on video games preservation, and the establishment of Stop Killing Games – an initiative aiming to mount political and legal challenges to the increasingly common occurrence of purchased games becoming unplayable. And debate only intensified when Ubisoft later began quietly revoking owners’ licenses to The Crew, making it impossible to download and install.
