Fans of racing games are numerous. We’ve all played Need For Speed, Forza Horizon/Motorsport or Gran Turismo. Personally, my youth was punctuated by numerous episodes of NFS, notably Most Wanted I, Gran Turismo, but also Burnout for fun. Today, things have changed a lot, with mainly simulation titles like AC, ACC and iRacing. This change has been driven by rig sim-racing and its Direct Drive and Load Cell pedal bases.

The world of virtual cars is truly vast, with titles divided into 3 categories:

• We have the arcade games, focused on fun and dynamic driving. Examples include almost all Need For Speed, Forza Horizon, Burnout and Test Drive Unlimited, which is the subject of this article.
• We have the sim-arcade titles, which focus on a little fun, but with a good dose of simulation. In this category, we have Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo when you lower the difficulty level, but also F1 when you deactivate everything to do with simulation. These three titles can also be included in the next category if you wish.
• And then there are the simulation titles, where realism takes its place on the throne. In this category, the tenors are Assetto Corsa, iRacing, rFactor and the list goes on. These games are 100% realistic, and you’ll need rig sim-racing to get the most out of them.

Among the titles I’ve just mentioned, we have one that is over 30 years old. I’m talking, of course, about Test Drive, which saw the light of day in the late 80s. Today, the latest game is Test Drive Unlimited 2, released over 10 years ago. There have been quite a few changes regarding the game’s publisher and developer in recent years, including takeovers and name changes. And it’s with great pleasure that the new opus of the saga shows itself a little more on the net, and that’s what we’re going to have in what follows.

Everything we know about Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crow

TDU Solar Crow was announced by its studio in 2020, but development dates back to 2018. It’s fair to say it took a while, and the global health crisis certainly played a big part in that. All industries were strongly impacted by it, and it took us some time to recover.

At the beginning of 2024, a teaser was launched on the Internet, and it was an opportunity to learn a little more about the game. As a result, we were able to see that the game features a large number of cars, and according to the latest information circulating, TDU Solar Crown should have something like a hundred vehicles available to drivers. The title’s racing cars include GTIs, Super Cars, Hyper Cars, Exotics and even high-performance electric cars, such as the Porsche Taycan.

Previous TDUs were open-world, like Forza Horizon. Solar Crown won’t change that at all, and this time we’ll find ourselves in an Asian city. Hong Kong will be the scene of TDU Solar Crown’s races, with a 1:1 scale representation, but only over an area of 50 square kilometers. Oh yes, Hong Kong is really big, and this significant reduction in usable surface area will benefit us all the same, because from what I’ve seen on the teaser, immersion is much better, even if the accessible area is reduced in size. I imagine that the developers preferred to have a better quality of gameplay, rather than a large quantity of roads. Well, that’s fine by me.

In terms of platforms, TDU Solar Crown will be available on current consoles, as well as on PC. This means that there will be a PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Steam version too, enabling pilots the world over to enjoy the title. Also, the new TDU will be online multiplayer only, with the possibility of wandering around on your own of course (free roam). However, I don’t yet know whether you’ll need to be connected to the Internet to play, as this is the latest craze. We’ll know more once TDU Solar Crown is released on September 12, 2024.

Of course, car modification will still be present in this new TDU opus, whether cosmetic or performance, and on all available vehicles.