Ubisoft's The Crew Revived Through Community-Made Project

If you recall, YouTuber Ross Scott's Stop Killing Games movement, which continues to push for laws preventing publishers from denying game ownership to fans, originally started in response to Ubisoft shutting down the racing game The Crew. Now, thanks to a community-driven project, which aimed to restore the game to a playable state using custom server emulator software, The Crew is back.

Due to The Crew's online-only design and dependence on Ubisoft's central servers, the game became completely unplayable worldwide when the servers shut down on March 31, 2024, even for physical copy owners. Unlike some online games, The Crew did not receive an offline mode before its shutdown.

All it takes to play The Crew Unlimited is the original game: download the launcher here, and get started now. The goal of the project is to make both offline and online modes available in The Crew. "Your local server, your local savegames, your game. No one will ever be able to take this away from you now," says the TCU team.

The Crew might not be everyone's favorite game, but this effort stands as an important act of video game preservation. Ultimately, people paid for a product that was later rendered entirely inaccessible.

The Stop Killing Games petition has just entered the signature verification phase, with early checks from several countries confirming around 97% of signatures as valid. The review process is expected to take approximately three months, and once completed, the petition will be formally submitted to the European Commission. In the meantime, the team continues working behind the scenes, countering misinformation and industry lobbying, and strengthening community structures in preparation for the next stage.

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