Since it launched last year, the Nintendo Switch 2 boasts a respectable library of racing games beyond the obligatory Mario Kart World, with recent titles like GRID Legends: Deluxe Edition and Gear.Club Unlimited 3 appealing to automotive enthusiasts with their licensed cars.
Now, the Switch 2’s first fully open-world racing game has arrived with a surprise port of The Crew Motorfest, four years after its original PC and console release.
Conveniently, returning players who already own the game on other platforms can transfer their save files and continue progress on Switch 2. This is a swift and seamless process: simply sign in to the same Ubisoft account used in other versions of the game, and your career progress and car collection will transfer automatically.
The only caveat, however, is that any paid Year Passes owned on other platforms, which provide early access to certain cars without using in-game credits, won’t transfer.
Frustratingly, this means that Year Pass cars you owned before still appear in your garage after the transfer, but remain locked unless you buy them again on Switch 2. Curiously, the latest Year 4 Pass currently isn’t available on Nintendo’s console, either.
Likewise, premium DLC such as the Chase Squad and Tomb Raider Secrets of Ni’hau expansions won’t transfer if you already own them on another platform.
For the love of cars
For newcomers, The Crew Motorfest is Ubisoft’s answer to Forza Horizon. It sees you collect and drive a variety of vehicles around Hawaii’s sun-soaked Oahu island, with events split into themed playlists. One playlist, for example, tests your sideways driving skills in drift challenges, while Made in Japan events put you behind the wheel of Japanese cars.
These are combined with manufacturer-specific playlists, complete with live-action cutscenes exploring the history of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, to name a few. There’s a clear reverence for car culture in the presentation and vehicle curation.
This approach keeps the campaign focused while allowing you to sample the diverse car roster, though you can’t enter your own vehicle in events until a playlist is completed.
The Crew Motorfest’s car roster is unmatched on Switch 2. Compared to Gear.Club 3’s modest collection of around 40 cars, Ubisoft’s open-world racer boasts a seismic selection of over 800 vehicles – and it’s still growing.
Impressively, new models often appear in The Crew Motorfest before rival games. Most recently, the Bugatti Tourbillon (Bugatti’s bonkers 1,800-hp successor to the Chiron) made its racing game debut, and can be taken for a spin in a limited-time trial event.
Away from the main events, the island is rife with side activities, from photo opportunities to collectables to find. Alternatively, you can explore the island in boats and planes, switching between them on the fly.
Players new to The Crew franchise have a lot to catch up with. Ubisoft Ivory Tower’s post-launch support has been commendable over the last few years, with free live service updates adding additional playlists, multiple island expansions and even a track creator, which continues to expand.
This month marks the start of its fourth year of live service updates, starting with Season 11. A new playlist sees you explore an untamed island in off-road expedition-style missions, deploying a winch to clear obstacles and tow stranded vehicles out of trouble.
Beyond this, upcoming seasons will add new Asian vehicles, taxi missions and, in a new vehicle category, semi-trucks. Happily, all future updates will be released on Switch 2 alongside other platforms simultaneously.
The whole world in your hands
While open-world racers are nothing new on other platforms, freely exploring The Crew Motorfest’s enormous map feels novel on Switch 2. Its pick-up-and-play nature and arcade-style vehicle handling suit the platform, whether you want to focus on ticking off race events or casually cruise around the island in short bursts.
Cramming Oahu and its surrounding islands onto the Switch 2 is an impressive feat, but there are inevitably some visual compromises to achieve this.
Image quality looks soft overall, with aliasing appearing around objects. Visual pop-in also often results in trees appearing out of nowhere, and in-car mirrors lack reflections in the cockpit view.
Despite this, The Crew Motorfest looks mightily impressive on Switch 2, with detailed car models and stunning lighting effects. Considering the hardware limitations and large open map, which you can can still zoom out in real time to reveal the whole area, it’s one of the better-looking driving games on Nintendo’s console.
It’s a shame there are no quality or performance preset options, though. A 60fps mode like in GRID Legends would be welcome, even at the expense of visual fidelity.
It would make the driving feel smoother, too. Like other Switch 2 racers, The Crew Motorfest suffers from a lack of analogue controls for braking and acceleration. This can be a hindrance when weaving through traffic at high speed or completing drift events that require precision.
Fortunately, the forgiving physics help offset this, and applying an array of driving assists can help you adjust to the controls. Third-party analogue controllers aren’t supported, sadly, but you can at least map acceleration and braking to the right analogue stick.
A more pressing issue is the online connection requirement. Without internet access, The Crew Motorfest is unplayable beyond the main menu, despite having an extensive single-player campaign. This unfortunately limits where you can play it on the go if you can’t find a Wi-Fi or hotspot connection.
Ubisoft has promised to add an offline mode at some point, but it likely won’t arrive until late in the game’s lifecycle and could be years away. Until then, the online requirement is a significant setback that hampers the inherent appeal of playing the console anywhere in the world as a handheld.
Online requirement gripes aside, this is a stellar and technically impressive port. With a comprehensive collection of licensed cars, a huge open world to explore and frequent live service updates, The Crew Motorfest is unquestionably one of the best racing games you can play on Switch 2.
With no rival open-world racing games and Forza Horizon unlikely to be ported to Nintendo’s console, it’s in a league of its own.
Score: 8/10
“A commendable Switch 2 port, let down by its online connection requirement”
Discussion