TDU: Solar Crown May Finally See Some Gameplay Footage

Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, the new instalment to the Test Drive Unlimited series may finally see some gameplay footage after months of teasers despite its original 2022 release date.

Test Drive Unlimited

Test Drive Unlimited 2 is a game I absolutely love and played a hell of a lot on my old Xbox 360. Unfortunately, it was originally developed by Eden Games who closed back in 2013 leaving the series behind with the Steam release of the game being removed. TDU 2 wasn’t only a racing game but also a lifestyle game offering you the chance to experience a millionaire lifestyle in Ibiza and Hawaii. It was an incredibly detailed game allowing you to own your own homes and directly interact with your cars even allowing you to roll down your windows and despite being a pointless feature, it gave TDU its identity.

The game had fantastic progression starting you off at the bottom living in a caravan and working your way up the Solar Crown racing championship with limits of what you can fit in your garage. The game even made you complete your driving test to achieve the licenses required to race in the various championships from Classic cars, offroaders and supercars, it was tedious but it felt real. After all of this, you can probably picture my excitement when Big Ben Interactive, now called Nacon and known for the WRC games, acquired the franchise and announced its plans to reboot the franchise.

TDU Solar Crown

TDU Solar Crown was announced by Nacon in 2020 during the Nacon Connect event on the 7th of July and gave a release date of 2022 taking place in a 1:1 replica of Hong Kong. In 2022 they released the expected announcement that they would be delaying the game to 2023 and since then we have only received images and teasers of the game with no gameplay at all. This of course hasn’t filled fans or myself with much confidence as it is halfway through 2023 and we haven’t seen any gameplay for a game that was supposed to release in 2022.

Today’s Announcement

That all may finally change with the announcement today on the r/TDU3 subreddit titled “Vivian has an important message for you.” This announcement is for a video featuring the first Solar Crown driver selections on Wednesday the 12th of July at 17:00 UTC and invites the organization’s most prestigious members to Hong Kong to drive their first laps of the competition. To me, this sounds like we may see some actual racing gameplay which is about time. I’m all for delaying the game till it’s ready but there haven’t been many updates or information for the game in the “monthly” newsletters. It’s as if they hope the game will sell itself without any advertising and they are just banking on the hardcore fans who are already unhappy with the most recent announcement.

The previous newsletter for the game shared that it would not be including Houses at launch but instead, a single hub area which in my opinion loses the character of the TDU series. This single hub area is named “The Solar Hotel” and encompasses the main features such as clothing stores, hair stylists and your own hotel room. A hub area, whilst great for accessing everything in one go, just makes the gameplay a bit stale. Having to go to clothes stores, hairdressers, plastic surgeons, real estate agents and dealerships in person all spaced out across the map gives TDU that unique lifestyle feel that a hub area will just remove entirely. It may seem tedious having to do all that but visiting these locations gave you an excuse to explore and drive your cars around.

My hopes for this game are limited but I could still be surprised, I look forward to July 12th to make my opinion.