The Crew 2 graphics downgraded in next-gen update

Now in its fifth year, The Crew 2 recently received 60fps support for PS5 and Xbox One X in the Season 6 update along with a dynamic 4K resolution, enhanced lighting effects, and handling improvements. In theory, this should bring Ubisoft’s open-world racer up to modern standards and take advantage of current-gen hardware.

However, the community has discovered the 60fps upgrade has a major caveat.

Downgraded graphics

As reported by Push Square, there’s a significant reduction in visual quality when enabling 60fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Resolutions are normally reduced in performance modes, but The Crew 2 looks atrocious in performance mode and appears to dip below 1080p resolution.

Texture quality is comparable to PS3 and Xbox 360 games and the game looks blurry in performance mode with stuttering scenery thanks to a lack of anti-aliasing.

The visuals take a huge hit and look “worse than a compressed Twitter video” according to YouTuber Blackpanthaa in performance mode. Switching back to resolution mode improves the visual quality but locks the frame rate at 30fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

The Crew 2 feels better to play in 60fps, but it's difficult to recommend when it results in a severe graphical downgrade.

It’s worth noting that The Crew 2 doesn’t natively support PS5 or Xbox Series X. Instead, the update enhances the PS4 and Xbox One versions, which are backwards compatible on the new consoles. Even so, there’s really no excuse.

With the extra horsepower of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, The Crew 2 should run at 60fps while matching the visual fidelity of PS4 Pro and Xbox Series X without a hitch. After all, this is a last-gen game from 2018.

Temporary fix

Ivory Tower is aware of The Crew 2’s graphical issues and is working on a solution. “Following the deployment of the Season 6 Episode 1 update, many of you have shared your concerns about a degradation of the visual quality of the game to reach the 60 FPS target,” a forum post reads.

“While maintaining a smoother framerate necessarily has an impact on the visual quality of the game, we also wanted to share an update about what our plans are to address some of this concern."

“Our teams continue to work on improving the 60 FPS experience, and we have good reason to believe that we will be able to offer a higher resolution in the near future as well as a better use of the console resources.”

Until an update is released, Ivory Tower recommends PS5 users to reduce the default resolution to 1080p. To do this, go to Console Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > Resolution and select 1080p.

But based on Blackpanthaa’s findings, the visuals are only marginally improved with this workaround.

A native PS5 and Xbox Series X release would solve these issues, but Ubisoft has no plans for this yet. Rumours suggest Ivory Tower is working on The Crew 3, so we may have to wait until the sequel for the series to fully utilise the PS5 and Xbox Series X.