The Crew Motorfest from Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. - live service racing evolves with seasonal islands

Reviewed: ad hoc news Bestseller & Flagship desk. Edited and checked on 2026-06-22, 14:13. Details in the imprint.

The Crew Motorfest from Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. drops you straight onto a glowing O?ahu highway, palm trees flicking past the windscreen while the controller vibrates with every gear change. Within minutes, the sky shifts from soft orange to clean neon as night races unlock.

Hawaii island as live hub

Ubisoft positions The Crew Motorfest as a live-service open-world racer set on a condensed recreation of the Hawaiian island of O?ahu, with dense city streets, coastal roads and off-road trails built into one continuous playground. The third entry in the series, it launched in September 2023 on PlayStation, Xbox and PC and has since been expanded through multiple seasons.

Game director Stéphane Beley and his Ivory Tower team moved away from the continental United States map of The Crew 2, instead opting for a tighter, more vertical island that allows faster travel between activities and denser event placement. The result feels busy: traffic noise thickens in Honolulu, while remote mountain paths quiet down to just engine note and wind.

Playlists and evolving seasons

A central idea in Motorfest is the curated "Playlist" structure, essentially themed tour campaigns ranging from vintage classics to electric hypercars, each with its own narrator, events and borrowed vehicles. Players do not need to own every car to sample a playlist, which lowers the barrier for newcomers and makes the first hours more generous than in many rivals.

Since launch, Ubisoft has layered in seasonal updates, including the Hoonigan collaboration and new Made in Japan content, rotating limited-time events and adjusting the in-game festival site accordingly. Visiting the hub after an update, you literally see new banners, stages and parked hero cars, which makes the festival feel like a physical motorsport meet that changes between weekends.

Driving feel and car collection

The handling still skews toward arcade, but there is slightly more weight transfer and tyre squeal feedback than in The Crew 2, especially on high-performance rear-wheel-drive cars. On a DualSense controller, small vibrations announce loose gravel or wet asphalt, making it easier to sense when grip is about to break.

Ubisoft continues to lean on licensed brands, from Lamborghini and Porsche to smaller tuners, and extends progression with a mix of credit earnings and optional microtransactions for car bundles and cosmetic items. Creative director Serge Hascoët previously pushed for more open-world, systemic experiences; Motorfest fits that direction, blending exploration with car-collection loops.

Where Motorfest falls short

There are trade-offs. Reviewers at outlets such as Eurogamer and IGN have praised the colorful island but criticized the always-online requirement and grindy late-game economy, where high-tier upgrades demand repetition or additional spending. Some long-term players also point to network hiccups during peak events.

On older consoles, the picture stays clean but traffic density and foliage can thin out noticeably compared with current-generation hardware, slightly undermining the sense of a bustling festival. Sound design, while sharp for engines, leaves crowd and ambience noise relatively subdued once you leave the central hub.

Company context and shares

For Ubisoft Entertainment S.A., The Crew Motorfest is a pillar in its push toward recurring, service-driven franchises alongside Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy brands, with the company repeatedly calling out live-service engagement as a strategic priority in quarterly updates. Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. shares (ISIN FR0000054470) trade primarily on Euronext Paris in euros.

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