Ubisoft is being sued for making The Crew unplayable

A pair of Californian gamers are suing Ubisoft for closing down racing game The Crew.

In December 2023, the publisher quietly delisted The Crew from digital storefronts, and confirmed that the online-only game would no longer be playable beginning this April.

“After almost a decade of support, we will be decommissioning The Crew 1 on March 31, 2024,” it said at the time. “We understand this may be disappointing for players still enjoying the game, but it is necessary due to upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints.”

Now, as spotted by Polygon, two impacted players have launched a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Ubisoft of violating California consumer protection laws.

They claim it duped consumers “by telling them they were buying a game, when in fact, all they were renting was a limited license to access a game that Defendants choose to maintain at their own noblesse oblige”.

Plaintiffs also claim the product’s packaging “falsely represented that The Crew itself was encoded onto physical disks consumers could buy or the digital files consumers could pay to download”, when in fact “the physical disks and downloaded files consumers paid for were more akin to a key they could use to open the gates of this remote server, which Defendants could one day decide to fail to maintain”.

The plaintiffs want the court to approve the lawsuit as a class action, and are seeking monetary relief and damages for affected players.

The suit also notes that Ubisoft previously shut down online servers for old games while preserving their offline features, as was the case with Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed 3.

In response to a fan backlash, in September Ubisoft announced plans to launch offline modes for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest.

“We want to acknowledge that some of you voiced concern about the access to The Crew games,” said Stéphane Beley, senior creative director of the franchise at Ivory Tower.

“Today, we want to express our commitment to the future of The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. We are currently exploring different solutions, and can confirm an offline mode to ensure long-term access to both titles.”