Nintendo Switch 2 owners have been waiting for a serious open-world racer, and Ubisoft just answered. The Crew: Motorfest is officially coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on October 8, 2026, the publisher confirmed this week. The third entry in The Crew series, originally released in 2023, brings its O'ahu-set festival racing experience to Nintendo hardware for the first time.
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The gap in the Switch 2 racing lineup gets filled
Here's the thing: the Switch 2 has been noticeably thin on big-budget racing games since launch. With Forza Horizon remaining an Xbox and PC exclusive, Motorfest steps into that space as the most feature-complete open-world racer Nintendo's new platform has seen. The game drops players into a sprawling playlist-based festival across the Hawaiian island of O'ahu, mixing road racing, off-road, boat events, and plane challenges across a genuinely distinctive map.
Developed by Ubisoft Ivory Tower, Motorfest launched on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC back in September 2023. The Switch 2 version arrives about three years later, but the core game has continued to receive seasonal content updates throughout that window, meaning new players won't be jumping into something stale.
How you can get it, and the catch you need to know about
The game will be available both digitally through the Nintendo eShop and physically through a Game Key Card release. Pro tip: if you're eyeing the physical option expecting a traditional cartridge with the full game on-chip, the Game Key Card format is essentially a code in a box, so the distinction matters less than it looks on a shelf.
The bigger issue for Switch 2 owners is the always-online requirement. Like its PC and console counterparts, the Switch 2 version requires a persistent internet connection to play. That's a genuine problem for a hybrid console where portable, offline play is a core selling point. Ubisoft has previously committed to developing an offline mode for Motorfest following the shutdown of the original The Crew's servers in 2024, but no confirmed timeline for that feature arriving before or alongside the Switch 2 launch has been announced.
What this means for Switch 2 players
For players who already own Motorfest on PS5 or Xbox, the question of double-dipping comes down to whether cross-save support will be present. Ubisoft has not confirmed cross-save functionality for the Switch 2 edition at the time of writing, which is worth watching before launch day.
For anyone coming in fresh, Motorfest offers a solid amount of content: hundreds of vehicles, a variety of racing disciplines organized into themed playlists, and a shared open world where other players populate the map around you. The O'ahu setting is genuinely one of the more memorable maps in recent racing games, with elevation changes, coastal roads, and distinct districts that keep driving around it from feeling repetitive.
What most players miss when they first boot the game is that the playlist structure, where each playlist is a curated series of events around a theme like Japanese street racing culture or classic American muscle, is what separates Motorfest from a generic open-world racer. It gives the progression a sense of direction that the genre often lacks.
October 8 is the date to mark. If Ubisoft confirms offline mode support or cross-save details before then, that will significantly change the calculus for a lot of potential buyers. Keep an eye on our The Crew: Motorfest guides for updates and tips as the launch approaches.
