November has become a tad less busy, now that Ubisoft Reflections has chosen to delay its open-world racer, The Crew, into early December. The delay — which makes sense in the long run — was announced today, through the UbiBlog, and wasn’t a surprise to those who played the game’s recent closed beta. From the sounds of things, certain aspects need a bit more fine-tuning.
For more on this delay, and the results that the studio gleamed from its most recent beta, check out the following quotes from Creative Director Julian Gerighty:
“We received a lot of valuable information from the recent PC and console betas,” says Creative Director Julian Gerighty. “We are now scrutinizing all of the player feedback so we can ensure that The Crew delivers the seamless open-world experience that meets everyone’s high expectations.” This ongoing process has already resulted in some substantial updates to the game, including everything from the option to fully remove the HUD so players can enjoy the scenery as they roam freely through a massive re-creation of the United States (a highly requested featured, Gerighty tells us), to fine-tuning the collisions to be even more realistic and adding in new visual effects. Other major enhancements include adjustments to the difficulty (for example, tweaking the police A.I.) and better integration of the voice chat – especially helpful when crewing up with other players.
Developing The Crew has been a lot like an epic road trip. And, like any long-distance journey, some of the best moments are those detours along the way. The three closed betas added in a few additional unplanned side trips, in order to ensure that players have even more of what they crave in The Crew’s massive open-world playground. And the upcoming console closed beta in November gives the development team and the players yet another chance to work together to deliver a truly revolutionary driving experience.”
“One of the best qualities of The Crew is that it’s so open to being played in different ways,” Gerighty says. “People will find pleasure doing different things. Giving people that choice is something we really believe in.”
Given that a lot of games release with bugs these days, it’s always reassuring to hear about delays based around quality control. Sure, it sucks having to wait that extra while longer for an anticipated game, but it usually ends up being worth it in the end.
Now, instead of releasing on November 11th, The Crew will burn its rubber on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PC on December 2nd.