'The Crew' trailer shows off US chops

Creative director Julian Gerighty welcomes us into 'an open playground filled with missions and activities' in the Gamescom walkthrough trailer for driving game 'The Crew.'

Topics covered include car customization, skill challenges, races, and cross-country dashes -- so far, so very 'Grand Theft Auto V' -- but 'The Crew' doesn't constrain itself to a single US city.

In that respect, 'The Crew' fits into the same sub-genre as other open world roamers and racers 'Test Drive Unlimited,' 'FUEL,' 'Burnout Paradise,' 'Need for Speed: Most Wanted,' and the more than competent debut from Playground Games, 'Forza Horizon.'

And like the Pacific North West of 'Horizon' and Hawaiian paradise of 'Test Drive Unlimited,' 'The Crew' models itself on US geography but, ambitiously, aims to let players explore the entire country.

In some respects, that's not surprising, given that French studio Ivory Tower was formed by key members of the 'TDU' team, who are collaborating with UK developers at Ubisoft Reflections ('Driver: San Francisco').

Amid its variety of activities and environments, the trailer shows us a map that contains all of the 'Crew' roads and activities, with the US split into five regions: West Coast, Mountain States, Midwest, The South, and East Coast, with larger cities given a street layout, and New York, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, Las Vegas and LA among its larger urban attractions.

'The Crew' is an anticipated early 2014 launch on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.