Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown Release Date Announced


A long wait ends later this year: The release date for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown has been announced. Racers should mark September 12 in their calendars.

Image: KT Racing / Nacon

Fans have been looking forward to the release of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown for quite a while. The first mainline TDU title since 2011's Test Drive Unlimited 2 (followed by the Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends spin-off) was originally supposed to be released in September of 2022, but was announced to be pushed back to 2023 in May 2022 already.

A 2023 release did not materialize, either, but with a new announcement trailer finally gives players a date to look forward to: Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown will launch on September 12, 2024, allowing racers to explore a 1:1 recreation of Hong Kong Island.


Previously, the latest bit of news regarding the title had been a showcase of off-road gameplay and a late April playtest. In the meantime, players can head to the game's official website to complete missions to earn up to six cars and prove their skills to Vivian Hughes, the game's President of the Solar Crown organization.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown will be available for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

Are you looking forward to Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
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Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

Doesnt look like there are any pedestrians in the video which is a real shame if thats the case. The newest Crew game went along this path too. It just feels weird with zero peds wandering around a city, especially one supposed to be modelled on a true to life Hong Kong. Considering Driver had bustling streets which was made over a decade ago, its disappointing these titles cant implement them.
 

Another game which requires to be always online, what could possibly go wrong? Game has nothing to offer in comparison to even older titles. My predictions is that players base will be not big enough and within a year or two servers will be closed. Mark my words.
 
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Seen better looking mobile games. It runs on the same engine as isle of man tt and wrc so will look all glitzy in videos then rubbish when you actually play it. Not to mention the cheesey badly produced voice overs.
 

Another game which requires to be always online, what could possibly go wrong? Game has nothing to offer in comparison to even older titles.
Where did you see that the game needs a constant internet connection to play? The game isn't even out yet...
 
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Where did you see that the game needs a constant internet connection to play? The game isn't even out yet...


"“The Solar Hotel and clan HQs were also created as living areas and meeting places. For various reasons, these social features require an infrastructure that is constantly connected to online databases: leaderboards, races, inventories, moderation, live events, anti-cheat measures, and the overall game experience. An internet connection is therefore required to play TDUSC.”"
 
GameStop italy has been showing the offroad trailer on the in-store screens for a while now (like at least a monthh9 with the release date of 30/09/24 for some reason
 
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Seen better looking mobile games. It runs on the same engine as isle of man tt and wrc so will look all glitzy in videos then rubbish when you actually play it. Not to mention the cheesey badly produced voice overs.
While I wouldn´t say it looks "out of this world" and better than other stuff, the version we were able to play looked good/really good in "reality". But the engine defo has its strong points but also weaknesses when it comes to the graphical fidelity.

Regarding the voice over, I guess that is always a hard thing to get right, especially in games where the characters are not as deeply written (or have lore connection etc.) as for example in RPGs. But I can also tell you, voicing it in another language is not that easy (better not tell you which character I actually voiced for TDU lol don´t even know right now if it is still in the game tbh), which creates these big differences between german/english/spanish versions when it comes to how good the lip sync is for example.
 
they never bothered to fix issues with multiple peripherals since at least WRC7, tried to convince people that WRC:G throttle bug was actually a feature and cut support for it almost immediatly.
Wouldn't buy any game from them unless they clearly show they changed company policies, I'm sorry for their developers since the games were IMHO better than Codemasters/EA ones.
 

"“The Solar Hotel and clan HQs were also created as living areas and meeting places. For various reasons, these social features require an infrastructure that is constantly connected to online databases: leaderboards, races, inventories, moderation, live events, anti-cheat measures, and the overall game experience. An internet connection is therefore required to play TDUSC.”"
Oof... I don't like when games need an always online connection for single player stuff, like how GT7 or the new Forza do it :cry: Single player shouldn't have to conform to online anticheat rules :( Things like buying cars and upgrades, or playing single player races or free-roam, should be possible without needing an internet connection to do so, since those are core features of the game
 
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TDU 1 with the Platinum mod will wipe the floor with this new age crap.
Mark my words.

rFactor 1 physics in an open world environment.

Sadly no one from the community knows about this.
 
Car collection games work much better as a an open world concept for me... Fun but not addictive fun...

Always online isn't really an issue until the internet dies if the developers do their job...

The ragdoll effects must be pretty taxing on the physics in their open world for there to be no pedestrians... I'm also interested in how destructible the world is, as everything being a brick wall breaks the open world reality for me...

One day one of these open world car collectors will get the world aspect right...
 
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I'd rather any game continued to function with or without being online, However, My PC going offline would be a bigger concern.

That said, The reviews would have to be pretty good for me to pick up this game, I don't think its aimed at me and it really doesn't look that good.

Which is odd because I really enjoyed the previous 2.
 
While I wouldn´t say it looks "out of this world" and better than other stuff, the version we were able to play looked good/really good in "reality". But the engine defo has its strong points but also weaknesses when it comes to the graphical fidelity.

Regarding the voice over, I guess that is always a hard thing to get right, especially in games where the characters are not as deeply written (or have lore connection etc.) as for example in RPGs. But I can also tell you, voicing it in another language is not that easy (better not tell you which character I actually voiced for TDU lol don´t even know right now if it is still in the game tbh), which creates these big differences between german/english/spanish versions when it comes to how good the lip sync is for example.
This trailer's voice over may be not representative of the game and they suffer from the very bad writing (the trailer is atrociously boring and uninteresting). It's hard to deliver good lines if the writing is just bad.

There is a pattern since the beginning with the game's characters. Vivian Hughes character has been awfully ridiculous since her first appearance and, during the first presentation of the game, I felt quiet bad for this (absolutely gorgeous) woman in that role (and I usually don't care about sexist women representation in games) because she looked unconfortable herself (she was barely able to move with these too tights pants and those high heels ; the French touch? ). Who does believe that this character, with that outfit and her lack of self confidence, is such an event organizer? And I must add that I would have expected a local HK character as the organizer. Anyway, who cares about acting in racing games? Cheap stories, cheap lines, that's part of the genre.

The absence of pedestrians in the trailer is disappointing, this makes a real difference in an open world. And ragdolls aren't necessary if they just jump out of the car's way like in The Crew 1 & 2 games.

I'll keep an eye on the game due to the promise of more realistic physics than the usual open world racing games and to the recreation on a 1:1 scale of HK.

A mistake in the article : test drive ferrari legends isn't a TDU's spin off. They are all spin offs or sequels to the Test Drive series which has been existing since the late 80s.
 

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