Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown positive has taken fairly some time to get right here, from the earliest rumblings of the sport’s improvement means again in 2016 to the preliminary tease in 2020 and a string of missed launch targets since. All that point, we hadn’t seen precise gameplay footage — till this week. Publisher Nacon and developer KT Racing unveiled the sport in movement in a 35-minute pre-recorded video Wednesday, and it definitely does exist.
Backing up, a really vocal and constant group of followers has been pining for a brand new TDU entry for a while. It all began in 2006, with the discharge of the unique Test Drive Unlimited on Xbox 360, PS2 and PSP. The 360 model specifically was a massively formidable sport; in an period earlier than Forza Horizon, it promised and MMORPG-type always-online expertise the place you may cruise a one-to-one scale reproduction of Hawaii’s Big Island, O’ahu, in a variety of efficiency automobiles whereas serving to your self to homes and new threads. It was buggy, positive, but it surely felt like a distinctly next-gen expertise on the time, and the fun of exploration in a racing sport was refreshing and novel earlier than it turned an inescapable buzzword within the style.
2011’s Test Drive Unlimited 2 added Ibiza alongside O’ahu and, regrettably, a narrative that attempted means too onerous and frivolous on line casino minigames that performed out like Second Life for influencers. There was some driving, too. And it’s from TDU2 the place Solar Crown seems to tug most of its affect.
Wednesday’s session principally consisted of three-on-three multiplayer gameplay with gamers cut up into the sport’s two faction: “Streets” and “Sharps.” “Streets,” on this case, being hypebeast punks who like JDM machines, muscle automobiles and massive vehicles, and “Sharps” preferring costly European steel and formal night apparel. You’ll have to decide on a facet whether or not you prefer it or not.
Graphically, the sport is mediocre in its alpha state. Solar Crown is about on Hong Kong Island, and whereas among the denser areas look respectable, flat textures and a complete dearth of visitors automobiles or civilians leaves all the expertise coming off sterile and empty. To make issues worse, the sport by no means appeared to run at a steady or excessive framerate throughout all the footage, which might have been much less worrying, maybe, if it at the least appeared extra spectacular in a single body. Honestly, the entire thing jogged my memory of aimlessly tooling round in Assetto Corsa’s fan-made Shutoko Revival Project mod, besides in a sport constructed by a staff of paid workers over a few years that can price $70.
Our six tour guides additionally spent loads of time crashing into what few non-player automobiles populated the barren highways, and smacking partitions or swapping ends when confronted with tight corners. Now, I don’t deliver this as much as criticize their efficiency — the oldsters taking part in the sport had been builders and veteran racing sport content material creators like BlackPanthaa and Team VVV — however somewhat to query the standard of the physics at this stage in improvement. Despite the mass-produced nature of the session, different gamers’ automobiles had been additionally leaping round and teleporting small distances very often on stream.
But the true magic occurred when our gaggle of somewhat stiff avatars stepped foot right into a nightclub, a spot the place Solar Crown gamers can collect with a dimly-lit room filled with similar males in white t-shirts and light-wash denims and press a button the D-pad, which begins a limb-flailing animation. I assume these clones might be changed with a extra diverse crowd of our bodies and in addition another gamers’ characters too when the sport goes public, however nonetheless, that is a picture I gained’t quickly neglect:
At this level, Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown is slated for an “early 2024” launch, following earlier delays from September 2022 after which someday in 2023. Before that occurs, Ubisoft’s Ivory Tower staff, which incorporates builders from Eden Games who had been really liable for the primary two TDU installments, will launch The Crew Motorfest — one other open-world racer that appears to take extra inspiration from Forza Horizon set in, of all locations, O’ahu.
Source: jalopnik.com