Hands-on: The Crew Motorfest Season 8 brings deeper car customisation and street racing

• The Crew Motorfest Season 8 launches 5th November, 2025
• Two new themed playlists with curated events: Street Riders, which focuses on underground street racing, and a BMW playlist 
• New highly requested customisation elements let you change and colour wheel rims
• Quality of life improvements include full Steam Deck verification  

Over two years after it launched, The Crew Motorfest is entering its third year of live service updates, starting with Season 8. Launching on 5thNovember, the next season brings two new themed playlists: Street Riders and BMW, alongside a raft of new cars and quality of life improvements. 

Traxion was invited to Ubisoft Ivory Tower for a hands-on preview of The Crew Motorfest Season 8, as well as an early look at what the future holds for the series beyond. 

Street Riders playlist brings long-requested customisation options 

Headling Season 8 is the new ‘Street Riders’ playlist. Evoking Need for Speed’s underground racing, it sees you join a gang of illicit local street racers known as ‘The Monkey’s Kitchen.’ 

Across eight events, you’ll build and extensively upgrade an E46-generation BMW M3, one of several new cars introduced in Season 8. 

As you progress, the modifications get more outrageous. Before the opening street race, you’re invited to fit garish front fenders, raise or lower the ride height and tilt the wheels. With no limits, you can tilt the wheels at such incredulously steep angles that the suspension would probably break in real life.

While the modifications can look absurd, they don’t affect your car’s performance or handling.  

Also new in Season 8 is the ability to fit custom wheel rims – something that’s highly requested by fans according to the game developers.

Some designs are official, while others are from recognised real-world brands, including OZ Racing, HRE Performance Wheels and BRS Motorsport, with over 100 designs selectable in the preview build. Once fitted, you can also customise the colour and material of wheel rims.

“It’s one of the most requested features for the last nine years”, The Crew Motorfest’s Creative Director, Julien Hummer, tells Traxion. “It feels like the right time to finally deliver this customisation.”  

According to Ivory Tower, these new customisation options can be applied to “a huge number of cars” in the Street, Drift and Hypercar classes.  

Surprisingly, custom rims can even be fitted to Ferraris, a notoriously strict brand when it comes to adorning its cars with aftermarket parts in video games. “Almost every car brand said yes [to adding custom rims],” says Hummer. “We also had some feedback from manufacturers saying it’s a ‘nice addition to the game.’”

Back to the roots of street racing

As you race through illuminated tunnels, suburban streets, and storm drains, the underground street racing theme and emphasis on customisation inevitably invite comparisons to EA’s racing series. 

That long-running series was one of several inspirations for the Street Riders playlist, according to Ivory Tower. “For sure, it’s [Need for Speed’s street racing] a reference”, says Hummer, who goes on to say that other games and films also inspired the theme. 

Like Need for Speed Unbound, there is also a betting system. Before each event, you can accept or decline challenges, which range from driving with no assists and racing in cockpit view to removing nitro boosts. Winning the bet gives you a bonus cash reward, but there don’t appear to be any consequences if you lose.  

This isn’t the time The Crew Motorfest has represented street racing culture, however. Two of the most popular playlists are Made in Japan and its Vol.2 follow-up, which focus on Japanese car and street racing culture. “Street Rider is a different street racing vibe,” explains Hummer.  

Helping achieve this distinctive vibe is the unique presentation. Cut scenes before events are presented as livestreams reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto VI’s social media parodies seen in the trailers, with fake user comments flooding the side of the screen.

During playlist events, roads are peppered with graffiti, coloured flares and crowds of spectators. With every event set in the daytime instead of at night, the playlist is perhaps more comparable to Need for Speed ProStreet than Underground. 

Free Race events rip up the rulebook

One of the highlights during our hands-on was the new Free Race event type. Whereas other events follow a linear path, these races let you choose your own route between checkpoints and work out the fastest way to the finish line.

Using the environment to your advantage, you’re encouraged to take unconventional routes, from driving down stairs to taking shortcuts through construction sites. 

As the playlist pans out, you’ll continue to modify your M3 with custom bumpers, aggressive diffusers, side skirts, rear wings, bonnets, side mirrors, and bespoke interior and exterior colours. There’s a great sense of progression, as your car looks unrecognisable when you reach the final event.   

From our hands-on with Season 8, the deeper modification options are a welcome and long-awaited addition, making The Crew Motorfest’s car customisation feel more complete, and the Street Riders playlist captures the vibe of underground street racing culture. With EA temporarily stalling the Need for Speed franchise, this will fill the gaping street racing void.

New playlist celebrates BMW’s legacy

Street Riders isn’t the only playlist planned for Season 8. Later this year, it will be followed by a separate BMW-themed playlist that chronicles the Bavarian manufacturer’s rich history.  

Notably, it will mark the video game debut of the second-generation G87 BMW M2 CS. Considering that the rear-wheel drive sports coupe only started production a few months ago in real life. It’s indicative of Ivory Tower’s close partnerships with car manufacturers. 

While it won’t be playable until later this year, we spotted a camouflaged M2 CS appearing in the Street Riders playlist disguised as an AI opponent. Unfortunately, the BMW playlist wasn’t available to try during our hands-on. 

However, footage in the Showcase presentation suggests it will follow a similar format to Season 7’s Ferrari-themed playlist, with curated events and live-action cut scenes, this time filmed at the BMW Museum in Munich, Germany, with insights from BMW Group Classic’s Marc Thiesbürger. 

A BMW 2002 can also be seen in artwork for the BMW playlist. Other cars featured in the BMW playlist are yet to be confirmed, but Ivory Tower promises an “extensive lineup” of cars from its history.

Season 8 won’t only add new cars from BMW, however. Ivory Tower teases that more vehicles from other manufacturers are on the horizon, including “highly expected” models from Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Ferrari. 

A paid Year 3 Pass will also give players early access to new cars over the next year, starting with the Ferrari 12Cilindri and Zenvo Aurora Agil when Season 8 starts in November.   

Other changes and improvements in Season 8

Outside of the new playlist, Season 8 will also bring a flurry of quality-of-life improvements. The Crew Motorfest will be fully verified on Steam Deck for a more optimised experience playing on the go, while Grand Race PVP events will get improved progression and a new ranking system.  

A new friend pass system will also enable players to invite up to three players who don’t own the game to try The Crew Motorfest for free with no time limit.

Meanwhile, The Crew 2 is playable offline as of today (16th November) thanks to a new ‘Hybrid Mode.’

Beyond that, Season 9 will bring some surprising additions next year, including a track creator, a new playground island, NASCAR racing and RC toy cars. Season 10 will round off Year 3 in 2026, with further details to be confirmed.