The Crew goes free (for a month) next week

The next freebie in Ubisoft's ongoing series of monthly game giveaways will be the 2014 online racing game The Crew. Ubisoft said The Crew is an important piece of its history, “as it is the first fully connected open world we ever created.”

“Through the Crew, Ubisoft proposed a way to reinvent driving games by offering features that were traditionally dedicated to MMO or shooter games,” Ubi wrote. “This is also the first game Ubisoft developed and keeps on nurturing with constant community support and regular content update. Released in 2014, the game has since then welcomed more than 9 million players on its playground.”

We liked The Crew pretty well too. It was far from perfect but still provided "enduring enjoyment" and "one of the most exciting racing game environments for years," and Ubisoft has indeed stuck with it since: A new cops-versus-criminals expansion called Calling All Units is set to come out in November.

Ubisoft is giving away a different game each month (at the mid-month point) to mark its 30th anniversary of operations. Previous giveaways have included Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Splinter Cell, and Rayman Origins, which is still available at no charge from the Ubisoft Club. The Crew will take its place on the zero dollar podium on September 14.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.