Time for another city from The Crew comparing it to its real life counterpart! The last three I’ve talked about have been New Orleans, Dallas, and St. Louis. What’s cool about those three cities is that I’ve actually been to them before and I could talk quite extensively about them. That is not the case with the next city I’m about to talk about and it also makes me realize I haven’t been to a whole lot of cities in the Midwest. So without further ado, here’s The Crew’s Detroit.

A lot of people I’m sure, are familiar with this Midwestern city. After all, the big American car makers are headquartered there and a lot of the vehicles made generally come from the Detroit area. Sadly though this once proud city has been on the decline for years and is not looking very promising for the future either. Detroit has a large downtown, but other parts of the city are run down, crime infested, and even abandoned. The city is known for being gritty and industrial, lots of warehouses that sit empty or are even falling apart.

The Crew’s version of Detroit generally does well at capturing the essence of this gritty city. You’ll have a lot of races through old industrial areas and abandoned factories. You will also start the very beginning of the game not too terribly far from the city of Detroit and important cut scenes at the beginning set up the story here quite well. Detroit is also where you’ll have your home base setup as well as access to the first set of vehicles that you can purchase, upgrade, and use early on in the game. I can tell you that the car I first purchased here was a newer Chevy Camaro which I still own in The Crew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Crew’s Detroit does have some freeways you can drive on that are reminiscent of Detroit’s actual highways some of which mimic I-75 in the city. The city of Detroit in the game is one of just a couple of cities that have freeways wider than the standard 4 lane highways everywhere else. They are not that much bigger though with them being six lanes at the most which I don’t mind. The traffic is never very thick, but not too light either as you’ll come to find out when you are doing some of the game’s races in the main story when you start out in the city of Detroit.

Now as I said earlier, I have never been to this city or the state of Michigan that it resides in. Really the only experiences I’ve had of this rust belt city is from what I’ve seen in the media from the news, tv shows, movies, and even video games.

The Crew is not the first racing game or even open world racing game to feature the city of Detroit. Quite awhile back on the PS2, the open world racing series known as Midnight Club featured this city in the third iteration of the series known as Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. It too had a likeness to the actual city though I think The Crew’s version does a better job at resembling Detroit the most.

I want to talk about Detroit’s skyline. I’m sure you’ve seen many pictures of its skyline or skyline shots from the numerous movies that this city has been in. If you have then you know that while Detroit’s skyline is not small, it is much older too and does not have as many of the newer more modern skyscrapers that make up a lot of a city’s skyline these days.

The most modern looking of the city’s skyscraper’s are what is called the Renaissance Center which is a group of seven different towers that are interconnected with the tallest tower being 73 stories tall and over 700 ft. The entire complex is owned by GM and has its world headquarters located there. What’s interesting is that Detroit’s tallest tower, the 73 story one, is nearly identical to one of Atlanta’s tallest which is known as Peachtree Plaza. It turns out both buildings were developed by the same architect John Portman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know I’ve said this in the other city posts of The Crew, but I’m going to say it again. The skyline of Detroit very closely resembles that of its real life city. The tall art deco buildings, the Renaissance Center, and the baseball stadium for the Detroit Tigers are all there and look like the buildings and the rest of the skyline should look.

How is it the developers were able to get the buildings of Detroit practically exact and could not do it for the skyscrapers of New Orleans? The Crew’s version of the skyline of Detroit just looks amazing and like it should be while the only thing that makes the New Orleans skyline recognizable as New Orleans is the Superdome and the Smoothie King Arena. You can tell I’m not very happy with how they depicted the downtown area of New Orleans when other cities in the game look like their counterparts.

Now there are some other areas of Detroit in the game and if you’re familiar with the city (and the name of this movie) then you’ll know the 8-mile area as well as parts of the west end. It is all in there, but what is interesting is when you leave the city limits and head north via an interstate highway (I-75 in real life).

There is a bridge that crosses a body of water and goes into the peninsula of Michigan. The bridge is known as the Mackinac Bridge, but this bridge in reality is quite a distance from Detroit and not by the city as depicted in The Crew. As I’ve mentioned before though the map is not to scale so I can understand why the bridge is located where it is in the game.

Well there you have it folks, another city from The Crew compared to its real counterpart. I wish I could say a little more, but as I’ve mentioned I’ve never been to this city in real life and can only go by from what I’ve read and seen in pictures, tv shows and movies. Check back as always as I will do another city from The Crew very soon.