Nacon and KT Racing’s upcoming open world racing game Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown had a dedicated showcase, called the TDU Connect, where the first-ever gameplay was shown.
It was also announced there that the upcoming game, previously delayed to 2023, is now further delayed to early 2024. However, seeing the state of the game right now, currently in alpha, makes the delay rather understandable.
The presentation of the gameplay is.. quite the choice. Imagine all those fake gameplay trailers where you hear people playing the game talk to each other, but actually real. Essentially, it’s a let’s play that keeps cutting between six different perspectives and then the main stage from time to time. At least they featured actual content creators rather than hired actors to attempt to talk like content creators.
The gameplay we saw shows the headquarters of the two different factions, the Stripes and the Streets. Players can hang out in their hotel room, navigated in the first person, and then drop down to the lobby to meet their friends and group up before heading out to the streets of Hong Kong. Or they can party at the club, a social space where you mingle and fire emotes, which includes dance moves.
The glimpse of the Hong Kong map makes it clear this really is a 1:1 recreation of Hong Kong. The map screen lingered around Happy Valley, the southern island of Hong Kong. Comparing the in-game map to Google Maps shows most if not all the streets are seen on either map.
The actual driving is a bit less convincing though. The framerate isn’t stable yet, again this is the alpha version which in most development studios should mean “content complete” but still needed further polishing. Traffic is a bit sparse, but it’s there. The type of racing you do isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is looking for beta testers for its first closed playtest, which you can apply by subscribing to their newsletter.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is now expected to release in early 2024 for the PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store) and Xbox Series X|S.