As we said a little while ago, we will try to keep you informed with regards to reviews being delayed past the point of a game's launch due to embargos. Well, this one isn't quite about embargos, but it's close enough.

Ubisoft beat us to it this time with regards to The Crew. The game launches on December 2nd, and review copies and codes will be made available to press around about that time. However, Ubisoft feel that the game is best played alongside thousands of online players, so they've posted the following on their blog:-

You want to read how the pros feel after their carefully considered road tests of The Crew. While we totally understand (hey, we read reviews, too!), The Crew was built from the beginning to be a living playground full of driving fans, so it’s only possible to assess our game in its entirety with other real players in the world. And by other, we mean thousands and thousands and thousands of players – something that can’t be simulated with a handful of devs playing alongside the press.

For this very reason, The Crew will be available to media to begin their reviews when the game launches on December 2. There will be absolutely no embargo on any type of coverage once the game is available for sale.

You can check out the full post over at the Ubisoft blog.

We've been told that our review copy of the game will arrive the day before launch, and that "we estimate that it will take roughly 30-40 hours to properly experience the game and recommend this amount of play time for review."

Read into all of that what you will, but if you're brave enough to preorder or purchase on day one before you've been able to read a review of the game from your favoured outlet, we wish you well. If your favoured outlet is us, then we love you, too. The game goes into open beta today and that runs until the 27th, so you can give it a spin for free.

We'll bring you a review just as soon as we've had a chance to play the game for as much time as we feel is necessary.