The Crew Franchise That Inspired Stop Killing Games Campaign Surpasses 50 Million Players

The Crew series of racing video games surpassed 50 million players, according to the announcement from Stéphane Bely, Managing Director of the franchise’s developing studio, Ubisoft Ivory Tower, on Sept. 10, 2025.

Besides that, Bely also announced The Crew Showcase, scheduled for Oct. 16, 2025, and that the Bugatti Veyron Edition One will be free to claim for a week in The Crew Motorfest.

The Crew series includes three titles, all published by Ubisoft, including 2014’s The Crew, 2018’s The Crew 2, and 2023’s The Crew Motorfest.

The first installment in the series featured a single-player campaign up to 20 hours long, with a plot centered on infiltrating criminal groups with protagonist Alex Taylor (voiced by Troy Baker). The game, which received two expansions upon release, The Crew: Wild Run and The Crew: Calling All Units, required a constant internet connection to play.

Ubisoft shut down the game’s servers in 2024, rendering it unplayable. On top of that, Ubisoft revoked the game license from those who owned the game on Ubisoft Connect, sparking a significant controversy around the game’s shutdown, including a class-action lawsuit and the launch of the Stop Killing Games campaign, which aims to prevent game publishers from using similar practices to render purchased games unplayable.

The Crew 2 allows players to take control of a racer who is trying to work the way to success and become a racing icon in the United States in four disciplines: Street Racing, Off-road, Freestyle and Pro Racing.

Notably, the racing title won in the category Best Sports Game at the Ping Awards in 2018.

Just like the previous title, The Crew 2 required a constant internet connection to play; however, in 2024, following major controversy from gamers and critics over the shutdown and license revocation of the first game, Ubisoft announced that the game would receive an update to allow offline play.

Themed around a festival that serves as the main area for accessing the various events in the game, which is similar to that of the Forza Horizon series of games, The Crew Motorfest, the latest installment in the series at the time of writing, is set in an open-world environment: scaled-down versions of the Hawaiian islands of Oʻahu and Maui.

The game is playable on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.