Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown

[Jason]

To no surprise, it's been delayed to 2023: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1249970/view/3192501139825395531

 

The game will also no longer release on last-gen.

 

"Test Drive Unlimited is more than just a racing game, but rather a game about the joy of driving your car, the car that reflects your style and the one you have chosen over all the others. Buying a car from a dealership, listening to the radio while driving, putting the top down when the rain stops, using the turn signals properly, and even simply opening the window are all details that millions of players have fallen in love with. Our goal is to meet those expectations and to stay true to the franchise's DNA by including all those details. But we also want to go further and offer new experiences. We want to make all of Hong Kong Island and its 550km of roads to be a no-limits playground where the fun never ends."

 

Does give me hope that they have the right mentality for the game.

 

Still no gameplay or in-game screenshots though... 😕

[Commander S]

Yeah - seeing them actually spell out stuff like being able to use indicators and windows like in the older games is a bit like the new Saints Row making a big deal about having layered clothing and sock customisation, in that it's stuff that people really appreciated about those previous games, and nothing since has scratched that itch. So it's encouraging that this'll indeed play like TDU, and not just a perfectly-enjoyable 'Midnight Club Hong Kong' kind of affair.

 

As for dropping last-gen, aside from being a pain for folks who still can't get a new console, I think it makes sense, here - it's not a Cyberpunk situation, where "they should have dropped last-gen consoles!" doesn't excuse the mismanagement, or why the game couldn't pull off the sort of police/crowd AI that every GTA-like on the Xbox 360 managed just fine...  I recall something about Forza Horizon 5, where the reason why the map lacks a dense modern city is because you can't have a map that big and a section full of dense, complicated geometry. So trying to pull off the scale and detail of Sleeping Dogs, but on a size comparable to FH4 or GTA V, would mean either awful performance on lower-end machines, or asset quality that'd probably pale in comparison to even FH2, or the worst of both worlds - as it is, I'm more confident that the game will hold up by modern standards.

 

...except for folks on Switch - I get that unlike on Xbox/PS, there's no newer console for Switch players to swap to instead, and so cutting the Switch version would just mean losing Nintendo customers completely. But WRC 10 already had to deal with some brutal cutbacks to run, so I dread to think just how downgraded the Switch version will need to be (something like this, I imagine). 😬

 

 

Big question now is, what does "2023" mean? Because it could just be a push back to February/March, in order to still count as hitting a "fiscal year 2022" target, or we could be looking at Holiday season 2023, for all anyone knows. Silver lining at least: I'm not having to budget/schedule for the FH5 expansion in June/July, Saints Row in August, Solar Crown in September, and maybe Midnight Suns and Star Trek Resurgence on top for good measure...

[Commander S]

Not surprising, but TDU:SC is apparently going to start showing off more stuff at Nacon Connect, on July 7th:

 

 

 

Maybe first look at some (even just WIP) in-game footage? After all, if they were planning on releasing in September, I imagine that what they've currently got should be pretty representative of the finished product, in terms of 'this stuff isn't going to change between now and release'. That's probably why they've started showing concept art - because those are the concepts that made the cut, and look close enough to what we'll see in-game.

 

Also, in a move that's definitely for the best, the Switch version has indeed been dropped, according to a recent Nacon financial report - found by Alex7 over on Reddit:

 

 

 

If I had to take a guess, I'd say the new release date is going to be roughly a full year from the previously-intended one: i.e., August-September 2023 (probably September) - simple enough to just move their entire marketing schedule out by a year, and thus have next year's Connect to kick off the final PR push, with hands-on previews at press outlets in August. That'd make sense to me, at any rate.

[Mister Pink]

Yeah and it's more than likely Forza: Motorsport 8 will be released this year and will dominate car the racing circles this autumn. After 5 years since the release of the last FM, I reckon it will make a big splash. Not saying Solar Crown is a similar game but if they both release in the same release window, choices will be made and I'm not sure I'd want to be competing against Forza in the racing space. 

 

Glad they dropped support for Switch and happy they are keeping this current gen. 

[Jason]

Rumours are FM8 is actually 2023 lol.

 

FM8 and TDU really don't compete though, one is a track based racing sim and the other is (or should be) an open world driving lifestyle game.

[Mister Pink]

7 minutes ago, Jason said:

Rumours are FM8 is actually 2023 lol.

 

FM8 and TDU really don't compete though, one is a track based racing sim and the other is (or should be) an open world driving lifestyle game.

Yeah, like I said, I'm not saying they're the same game but many gamers like me that enjoy multiple types of racing games. If it's down to one or the other I'm picking one and leaving the other until it's on sale. If I'm playing FM8 and Solar Crown drops nearby, I'll hold off shelling out €60 and wait for it to be on sale. I want to play both games but if I'm getting my racing needs met I'm not going to hop between car games simultaneously.  I wouldn't care if I was making a Need For Speed or Project Gotham or TDU, I wouldn't be too happy putting my racing game in the same release window as any type of Forza. Anything to mitigate potential sales going to a competitor. 

 

I read the Tom Henderson Tweet about FM8 possibly being Spring 2023 "last I heard." I wonder if he heard before or after Starfield and Redfall postponements. Not saying he's wrong. I'd just like to know. I thought FM8 might be card up Xbox's sleeve to have some first party content on Game Pass this autumn. I know Hot Wheels/Horizon 5 DLC is being released so perhaps Xbox don't want to compete with themselves and support Horizon 5 bit longer by giving it, it's own space. 2023 release seems very plausible if they don't want to take away from Horizon 5 DLC. However, it's also plausible that if there isn't any first-party Game Pass in autumn then FM8 will release then. We'll just have to wait and see. 

[Commander S]

On 6/10/2022 at 11:28 PM, Mister Pink said:

Yeah, like I said, I'm not saying they're the same game but many gamers like me that enjoy multiple types of racing games. If it's down to one or the other I'm picking one and leaving the other until it's on sale. If I'm playing FM8 and Solar Crown drops nearby, I'll hold off shelling out €60 and wait for it to be on sale. I want to play both games but if I'm getting my racing needs met I'm not going to hop between car games simultaneously.  I wouldn't care if I was making a Need For Speed or Project Gotham or TDU, I wouldn't be too happy putting my racing game in the same release window as any type of Forza. Anything to mitigate potential sales going to a competitor.

 

 

Yeah - I get the feeling that there are enough fans of general 'driving' games that there's reasonable overlap. I mean, last year, one of the reasons I passed up on Hot Wheels Unleashed (despite the positive early reception), and even Art of Rally, was that my time/budget for that gaming niche was already taken by Forza Horizon 5 - and this year, I'm relieved that Solar Crown's been delayed, because with FH5 Hot Wheels in July, and Saints Row in August, TDUSC in September would be a bit much for both my calendar and my wallet! 😰

 

And it's the same with coverage, too - a lot of outlets tend to have one reviewer who specialises in car-related stuff (Luke Reilly, Adam Ismail, Mike Channell, etc.), and so having too many such games close together risks the 'lesser' stuff getting squeezed out by more established names. Same with getting racing game streamers to do previews: Nick from AR12, BlackPanthaa, etc., still cover GTAO updates, while also doing newer things like GT7, FH5, F1 22, and so on, so if KT want to really maximise that kind of exposure, they're best doing it when they aren't playing second fiddle to Forza Motorsport or the next Need for Speed. So, like with how the new Saints Row went from 'definitely getting kerb-stomped by Elden Ring' to releasing in August with no heavy-hitters to overshadow it until months later, Solar Crown coming out a good quarter after Motorsport, and the best part of a year after this year's (rumoured) Need for Speed, instead of this year, has probably worked out well for Kylotonn (IMO).

 

 

Also, more of a tease for Nacon Connect next month week - nothing new in terms of reveals (we've already seen the Huracán Peformante in the teasers), but it looks like that's a game-quality model, not an actual car (judging by stuff like the Alcantara texture). Good news if that's correct, because that's a nice-looking model - car models on a par with those in KT's WRC games would have been fine, but with the game targeting new-gen specifically, now, it's good to see they're aiming for a higher level of fidelity. Not to mention it bodes well for seeing some first looks at WIP in-game stuff, if not full-on gameplay proper.

 

 

[Jason]

 

 

Yet another completely garbage trailer, one that doesn't help sell the belief that they've got even the remotest idea of what makes TDU special. PvP? No one f*cking PvP'd in TDU. Clans? choosing sides?

 

Lads ffs, just give us a big map and loads of cars with interactive interiors. Nail that and you'll broadly nail what TDU is about. This screams like The Crew 2.0 from that trailer.

 

The fact they're still completely terrified to give us an actual proper look at in-game footage is an extremely bad look as well.

[Commander S]

Yeah, trailer was bobbins - and buried the actual interesting news*, which is that they have at least put up some WIP environment screenshots up on the Steam page. Here are a couple, with some real-life pics for comparison:

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Not looking too shabby at all - lighting reminds me of Sleeping Dogs, while the asset quality stands up well enough against the likes of Forza Horizon 3, which is at the better end of what I was expecting, taking into account that Kylotonn is a smaller player than Playground, and this is them reviving TDU from basically nothing, rather than Forza Horizon being able to build on previous games and borrow from Turn 10's work on Motorsport.

 

*some new cars, at least - 720S, for one - and the stealth confirmation that Ford is in, with that shot of a 2nd-gen F-150 Raptor at the halfway mark. And it's nice to see things like the F-Type and Viper in there - very much my jam, there.

[Jason]

TDU's scale means it's never gonna top Horizon in terms of visuals and TDU fans and most gamers know that. Those shots don't look bad at all, they need to show some actual gameplay instead of horrible garbage trailers that really have nothing to do with what TDU is about.

 

When they talk in interviews they give you the impression they get it, then they show trailers and it sounds miles away from what it should be. Again the whole PvP aspect they bigged up in the showcase is... whaaaaaaaa? No one did PvP in TDU, it was virtually dead. People just drove about, drag raced, unlocked roads, etc. People raced purely to earn cash and get new vehicles and nothing more - TDU is not a competitive series and TDU:SC shouldn't be either.

[Commander S]

4 hours ago, Jason said:

TDU fans [...] know that.

 

 

Fair - been watching some videos by long-time fans, and there's definitely a frankness about things like TDU2's shonky physics and the general writing quality that you don't normally see in gaming fanbases.  Even Saints Row fans have a tendency to pull out things like "Saints Row 1 is up there with some of the best writing in games!", and then TDU fans are all "nah, we're painfully aware that the character models in TDU2 look awful, lol".

 

4 hours ago, Jason said:

[...] most gamers know that.

 

 

...eehh, "most gamers" know so little about development, budgets, etc. that you can't move for takes like 'more games would be able to compete with GTA if the devs weren't lazy!', or 'if they made it in Unreal 5, it'd magically look photorealistic!', or 'no game should ever use anything (animations, textures, models, etc.) from a previous game, because that's lazy!', or 'you can just add Liberty City to GTAO, or Mexico to RDR2, because it already exists - just copy it over from the previous game!'.

 

Same as how the new Saints Row is going to get compared to RDR2 (because Volition = Rockstar in terms of budget, manpower, etc., apparently), or how people automatically assumed Everywhere would be a "GTA killer", just because "The Benz" (ignoring the fact that it's a brand-new studio's first game, without publisher backing), there are going to be a bunch of people holding this up to the likes of Forza and Gran Turismo, ignoring that Kylotonn has about 150 people, and they've been spread between Solar Crown and WRC all this time.

 

4 hours ago, Jason said:

 

When they talk in interviews they give you the impression they get it, then they show trailers and it sounds miles away from what it should be. Again the whole PvP aspect they bigged up in the showcase is... whaaaaaaaa? No one did PvP in TDU, it was virtually dead. People just drove about, drag raced, unlocked roads, etc. People raced purely to earn cash and get new vehicles and nothing more - TDU is not a competitive series and TDU:SC shouldn't be either.

 

 

That's something that stuck out, and concerns me: the creative lead describing the Solar Crown competition as the PvP part, while the Streets vs Sharps rivalry is the PvE. That's ...weird, because the Solar Crown was just the narrative framework in TDU2, like the Horizon Festival in FH. Maybe he's just framed it slightly incorrectly, and there'll be PvP and PvE tracks for the tournament (and then the story stuff is PvE, possibly with co-op if you want to play with others), because otherwise yeah, it feels off to take such a core part of the series' fiction and consign it to ...the part of the gameplay experience that (as you say) most people actually didn't bother with (!), and wasn't the Solar Crown's focus previously.

 

It'd be good if they started putting up some more official info on features on their website - it's a bit weak that the Steam page has been the main source of updates (including the delay announcement!). I get that it's a year out, now, and it's not uncommon for driving games (or Ubisoft games...) to only show gameplay mere months before launch. But to go back to a point from up-thread, TDU doesn't have the name brand clout of GT, Forza, or Need for Speed: it'd be in KT's interests to do more to get the game on people's radars. Maybe they can do a Volition, and get some primetime slots on one of Geoff Keighley's shows nearer to release... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Jason]

22 minutes ago, Commander S said:

...eehh, "most gamers" know so little about development, budgets, etc.

 

You're not wrong, but I look at games like The Crew where the lack of Horizon level visuals are forgiven due to the size of the map. It's something that people tend to understand when there's good justification for it.

 

23 minutes ago, Commander S said:

That's something that stuck out, and concerns me: the creative lead describing the Solar Crown competition as the PvP part, while the Streets vs Sharps rivalry is the PvE. That's ...weird, because the Solar Crown was just the narrative framework in TDU2, like the Horizon Festival in FH. Maybe he's just framed it slightly incorrectly, and there'll be PvP and PvE tracks for the tournament (and then the story stuff is PvE, possibly with co-op if you want to play with others), because otherwise yeah, it feels off to take such a core part of the series' fiction and consign it to ...the part of the gameplay experience that (as you say) most people actually didn't bother with (!), and wasn't the Solar Crown's focus previously.

 

It's a massive red flag tbh. Like I said, PvP was absolutely dead in TDU1 and 2. The core of the franchise was the open world driving, TDU1 had a long straight in the city that was always packed with people drag racing, the airport track always had people racing/drifting around it, etc. TDU2 was a bit more spread out with numerous tracks and more roads plus two maps, but it had it's hotspots too. That was the beauty of TDU, it was heavily built on emergent gameplay before the term emergent gameplay was being thrown around. When you try to focus what made TDU special into modes you end up removing the magic. 

 

Sharps vs Streets or w/e is a pointless thing that ultimately takes something that should be in players hands away from them, and generally just lumps a load of vehicles together shouldn't be lumped together. Let players create the groups if you want that sort of thing, like the TDU1 crew system, or if you insist on groups like that actually make use of the diversity that TDU games should have. The classic car drivers, exotics, off-roaders, muscle, bikes (remember those in TDU? I do!) etc etc, rather than simply boiling it down to "streets" or "sharps" cause srsly, wtf does either of those mean? 

 

Like I said they'll talk about it like in the delay announcement and make me think they've got a good idea of what made TDU so beloved, and then they talk again like today and make me think they've literally not got a scooby do. Another way to perhaps look at it, is in a era of console sims (Forza, GT) and street racers both of which with lots of customisation, TDU came out with a very basic feature set and became beloved because of that - didn't sell as well of course, but it found it's place and remains a beloved series that has had a huge influence on the now mega Forza Horizon games. Big map, cars (and bikes in 1) and some lifestyle stuff for your avatar, that's literally all TDU1 had and it was loved cause of it. I'm not against evolving that for a modern playerbase and I understand they'll want to bring more to the table, but they should be building on what made TDU special which was the open world driving experience, not trying to tack on things other games do.

[DexMacLeod]

I can't tell if that trailer is a deliberately pretentious parody of real car commercials or if they're trying to be genuine.