Reaching The Summit In The Crew: Wild Run

It’s fair to say that when The Crew originally launched in December 2014 that the reception was average at best. Here you had a scaled version of the entire mainland United States to drive across, but handling issues, bugs, and a tepid story meant Ivory Tower’s game was average at best. However, the studio didn’t give up and over the past year Ivory Tower has been working hard to improve The Crew, and that all culminates in the new expansion Wild Run.

The first major thing that Ivory Tower has done is update The Crew’s graphics, as well as adding dynamic weather effects, though these are available in a free patch for all. This leads to a package that looks brighter and sharper than the original release, with the various environments looking far more breathtaking. While this upgrade won’t elevate The Crew to the best looking racing game out there, it does make a decent effort to compete. The inclusion of rain also adds a new challenge due to the puddles on the road affecting your vehicle’s handling. From a smooth ride in the sun to much looser braking due to the wet conditions, you have to be wary once the clouds roll in.

Weather and upgraded visuals aren’t the main draw of Wild Run though. That belongs to the new vehicles and tuning specs on offer. Wild Run now allows you to ride bikes and drive monster trucks. The bikes add the biggest change to the game, especially dirt spec ones that can cut up hills at speed leading to huge jumps into the air. Quite a bit of my time was taken up by going to the big hills in the north of the map and seeing just how high my bike could fly.

The monster trucks are fun too as they can drive over most terrain with ease, though they did feel a bit more challenging to control than the bikes. The monster trucks seemed to have a bit less grip than other vehicles, sliding a little here and there when trying to make sharp turns. The monster trucks are fun though when it comes to their specific events in The Summit.

The Summit is a monthly event in which you have to earn an invite. To do this you will be required to take part in qualifiers around the country, where you’ll need to get a decent amount of points. These events include time trials, PvP races, and a few additions to the game thanks to new tuning classes in drift and drag events. As well as competing here you’ll also need to meet other requirements to gain access, for example completing free drive stunts. The free drive stunts can be anything from driving a certain distances on the road to near missing cars.

The addition of the new events shows The Crew finally reaching its potential. With the monster trucks you have two main modes to compete in. First is a score attack mode where you’re required to smash score targets that are littered over a track that wouldn’t look out of place in a Hot Wheels toy set. There are huge ramps to jump, loop the loops to speed around in, and chances to do flips in the air. The other is a king of the hill style PVP event. Four players go in to grab a crown and keep hold of it. If another player bashes into you they get the crown and the chase begins again, though there is a maximum time a player can hold a crown for before it is taken away from them.

The drift events test your ability to handle the cars and the new spec will have you switching between making a turn perfectly, hitting the brake at right time, and putting your foot on accelerator all in perfect unison to get the higher combo scores and climb the rankings. The drag racing isn’t the most exciting event in the game, consisting of revving the engine so it gets to a sweet spot for the right burn, hitting the pedal at the right time, and trying to get perfect gear shifts for the quickest run. A personal dislike though is a certain drag event where the track bends halfway, which requires a lot of slowing down to take properly or crashing.

In The Summit you are competing against the rest of the world to get an exclusive vehicle, November’s being the Lotus Evora, with those who achieve a Platinum ranking once the event is over guaranteed to get the car. All the points and rankings you get in each individual event count towards the overall position in on the main leaderboard, but to truly compete you’re going to need a crew, as some events are locked without having a four person team. You can join your friends as long as they have the expansion, but if that isn’t an option then joining strangers to help out is an option. The problem I found is that matchmaking was slow and most of the time a group to join couldn’t be found.

The PvP events are generally populated at The Summit though, with a variety of events that incorporate the different tuning specs and vehicles. In the lobbies players vote on which event to take part in, be it a bike race or a circuit race. If you already own a car of the right class you will be able to use it, but if an event crops up with a vehicle requirement you don’t have you will be loaned one. A loan car cannot gain you any unlockables for that class of vehicle, so it is best to go out into the wider world and acquire a number of different ones to choose from.

If this is what The Crew had been like since the beginning then it would have got more praise. The Wild Run content is a major step in the right direction, but the pricing for existing players may put people off, as the expansion costs £24.99, while a new retail bundle comes in at the regular full game price. While most of the events can be played solo there are those that require teams to work, and finding players to join was difficult and most of the time impossible. The new events and vehicle types are fun to experiment with, but since The Summit itself is a monthly affair you will have to wait to make the most of Wild Run, and people may not have the patience to wait around four weeks to compete in the event.