The Crew is a racing game set in an open world environment of a scaled-down version of the United States. Players have the ability to drive from coast to coast with the inclusion of major cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami and New York, as well as specific locales such as Pikes Peak, the Laguna Seca race track, famous landmarks such as Cape Canaveral, many highways and smaller towns. In the single-player campaign, Alex Taylor is a witness to his brother's murder, leading him to team up with the FBI to hunt down his brother's killer.
The missions in THE CREW consist of races and cutscenes that progress the story, as well as smaller challenges called 'skills' such as slalom courses, staying on the ideal racing line, making big jumps to cross gaps and maintaining a certain speed for a set distance. As Taylor rises up the ranks and gets tasks from the crew's tiers V, V2, V4, V6 and eventually V8, new areas open up.
Cars do not need to follow roads and can generally race on any type of terrain. There are specs for each type of environment that enhance performance, such as Circuit, Dirt, Performance, Raid and Street. Taylor gains experience to level up and the same applies to the cars. Regularly new car parts are supplied, often based on his performance, to upgrade the car.
Players can join crews to share the experience, work together and progress quicker. Crews of up to four people can form temporarily alliances with online players or friends. After joining a crew, factions become available, such as the Eagles on the East Coast and the Wolves in the Midwest, allowing for PvP and PvE races. Joining a crew is the only way to earn crew credits, a secondary currency to buy perks and cars.
The game supports microtransactions with real money to buy cars, but this is never required to progress in the game. Crew credits can also be bought as large credits packs. Each crew has a crew leader who can take decisions such as restarting a mission. The game contains many types of cars from licensed manufacturers like Aston Martin, Bentley, BMW and Ferrari.