The Crew may seem like a role-playing game, but that roar isn't coming from a dragon (preview)

While making the walk from the subway station to the Ubisoft office in downtown San Francisco, I was mentally preparing myself for a play session with new massively multiplayer online role-playing game. There would be the obligatory genre tropes to consider, such as character classes, item upgrades, side quests, and perks. I’d also likely have to join a party and take on a role of some kind.

Making a hard turn, cutting through a group of hi-tech worker drones on their way to lunch, I ducked down an alleyway toward a back entrance of the Ubisoft offices. A group of Ivory Tower developers dragging on their cancer sticks flanked the double doors leading to the play test. Bellowing behind those doors, I heard the familiar roar of the mythical beasts that would be a central character in this RPG. The sound, however, wasn’t the guttural echo that comes from straining vocal chords in a cavernous throat but the inorganic growl of a mechanical beast sucking in oxygen and gasoline while farting black clouds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as if global warming wasn’t going out of style.