Fans did what Ubisoft couldn't. The Crew returns with an offline mode
The Crew Unlimited will soon let some gamers play Ubisoft's dead racing game again, but not everyone.
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"Your local server, your saves, your game" - this is how fans of The Crew promote their initiative, who want to bring back to life this "dead" racing game. At least for those who currently own a copy.
The Stop Killing Games campaign has gained considerable momentum, not only in the involvement of players, but also in the support from politicians (including the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs). We are still waiting for the far-reaching effects of this initiative, but it has already had at least one effect: Ubisoft announced an offline mode for The Crew 2. Only for The Crew 2 - the first part of the racing series, which effectively started all the commotion, did not get a second chance.
At least not officially.
Server emulation
In March 2024, a month before the end of the "service" provided by Ubisoft, we got information about an unofficial project called The Crew Unlimited. For the next year and a half, the community gathered around the Discord channel of the initiative published updates on the progress of work, the last one being on September 1, 2025. That's when we got the release date: September 15, after another two weeks of testing.
We tried everything to save the game. In the end, we concluded that creating a server emulator for The Crew is the best and only solution. This would allow us to practically implement offline and online modes for the game, with the former simply being a local server running on your computer during the game.
Your local server, your local saves, your game. No one will ever be able to take this away from you.
The project assumptions are simple. It's a server emulator running on the player's computer, which allows to run The Crew in single player mode. Playing online is unavailable, but let's remind that even offline mode remains unavailable since the official servers were shut down.
Moreover, the ambition of TCU developers is to also restore online modes, although this will happen at a later date. It will simply take a bit more time, that's why the team prefers to make the offline mode available first. After all, for many players the priority is the ability to return to the game.
Two problems
Exactly - to return. The Crew Unlimited has two limitations. The first fact is that the player must have their own (downloaded or physical) copy of the game, but The Crew is no longer available for sale. In other words: TCU will not mean an influx of new players. There is no certainty whether even the game owners can download it from digital distribution platforms if they did not do so before The Crew's "death" (such a problem occurs, for example, in the Ubisoft client). Supposedly, it only works with Steam for now.
The second problem is the lack of old game save files - unless you have prepared their copies in the form of .json files (as recommended by the developers). If you didn't do this before The Crew servers were shut down... well, in that case, you have no choice but to start the game from scratch.
Nonetheless, fans hope that their work will allow The Crew to live for many years (or even "decades"). The Crew Unlimited will most likely only require downloading a special client, although we are waiting for detailed information (via Discord).
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Author: Jacob Blazewicz
Graduated with a master's degree in Polish Studies from the University of Warsaw with a thesis dedicated to this very subject. Started his adventure with gamepressure.com in 2015, writing in the Newsroom and later also in the film and technology sections (also contributed to the Encyclopedia). Interested in video games (and not only video games) for years. He began with platform games and, to this day, remains a big fan of them (including Metroidvania). Also shows interest in card games (including paper), fighting games, soulslikes, and basically everything about games as such. Marvels at pixelated characters from games dating back to the time of the Game Boy (if not older).
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