Ubisoft-Reflections-plus-racing-game isn’t exactly news, at least not in the classical ‘man bites dog’ sense. They’ve always made racing games, apart from the time they made Driver III – a sandbox city so embarrassingly buggy they may as well have called it Grand Theft Autoerotic Asphyxiation. “Nooo, get back in the car,” said everybody. And they did, at length rebuilding their reputation with a pair of excellent, silly, high-concept Driver games: Parallel Lines and San Francisco.
But let’s say, for a minute, that Ubisoft Reflections were making a racing sim in the Forza mould alongside a team of Test Drive Unlimited veterans. Now that would be news.
An anonymous source at The Examiner – purportedly the same that outed a jen-yoo-ine Assassin’s Creed IV: Me Hearties screenshot before its announcement – claims that Ubisoft have put Reflections to work on The Crew: a “realistic title, possibly being positioned against Forza and Gran Turismo”.
If true, it’s likely the same “all new” series Ubisoft made reference to in their recent financial report.
Supposed partners in co-development are Ivory Tower, a new studio made up of those laid off from Eden Games after the commercial failure of Test Drive Unlimited.
Reflections were last reported to be working on the driving elements of upcoming Ubi hack-’em-up Watchdogs, which seems like an easier fit for a team in tune with what a handbrake turn ought to feel like, rather than what it is.
Nevertheless: last time I checked (yesterday), Forza wasn’t on PC, and Gran Turismo was still the microwaved remains of 2004. And also not on PC. So I’m all for this. How about you?
Thanks, CVG.