Developer KT Racing has been a bit sheepish on showing information about Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown so far, but the team's latest Steam blog post is probably its most revealing info drop yet.
In here, the team discusses its 1:1 scale rendition of Hong Kong Island, along with what to expect from each of the 14 in-game districts. We must say, it's sounding pretty impressive — on paper at least — and the new in-game screenshots don't look half bad either.
KT says that TDU Solar Crown features a vast, varied open world containing everything from the "traditional narrow streets of the old town, to the wide highways where you can really put the pedal to the metal, to the off-road mountain trails that require skill and technique" to drive on. Judging by the team's latest WRC titles, we'd expect off-roading to be good fun in particular.
The game is also set to feature a dynamic day/night and weather system, with rainy conditions having a profound impact on how your vehicle will handle out on the open road. The time of day cycle contains "distinct phases for dawn, day, evening and night".
Test Drive Unlimited has always been known for its sheer scale as well; a tradition that the team behind Solar Crown is definitely continuing with. The dev has revealed that over 600km / 370 miles of road will be drivable in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, with everything from traditional races to speed traps featured within the open world.
All we need to see next is some proper uncut gameplay, but for now, we'll drop some of the team's latest screengrabs down below.
Is this starting to look like a proper Forza Horizon competitor? Let us know your thoughts on this new info down below.
Comments 11
This is looking fantastic. It was a series I've enjoyed in the past and it looks like I will be enjoying it again soon!
I'm happy to play it in addition to Forza Horizon - theres room for both in my life
Test Drive games always have looked great but they play less than great. So I doubt it will take Forza Horizon's crown yet
Really loved both games on Xbox 360, but yeah Forza Horizon took that bug and added great driving and rewind etc.
So I'm hoping this lives up to the hype and has good handling etc. as while I adored the games (particularly going round the car showrooms etc.) the driving would now be pretty dated...
@ZuneTattooGuy Indeed. I was a big fan of the first two TDU's and they had a lot of potential, but they ran like **** and the netcode was garbage. If they can manage to nail down a solid framerate and keep the cars from feeling like tanks on the road, I'll be all over this.
I love the Forza Horizon series, but I'll be honest; it needs a serious competitor. So far, the closest is The Crew and it just doesn't quite get there.
Ironically, Forza Horizon owes a lot to the Test Drive Unlimited series. Loved the TDU games and can’t wait to see the OG return. Hopefully it’s a great game both for it being fun to play and to give the Forza Horizon games a little motivation to step it up. I love the FH games but it’s clear lately they could use some competition.
Hope it will be more mature than FH, I'm sick of all the jumping and bouncing with cars that barely manage a curb. However, the first FH was incredibly good, the others feel like they are for sugar-speeded children.
That looks stunning. But... show us what it really looks like at the 60fps minimum a racer needs.... Just looking at the resolution shown here I can't imagine that holds even 30fps on a console.
Test Drive Unlimited was truly incredible, and I think everyone who was into racing games back in the 360 era was a fan of it. What I especially loved about the games, even over games that came after, is how true to scale the road maps were. Like driving 10 miles across an island was truly like driving 10 miles across the real thing, there wasn't all this reduced scale that we have in so many modern games like Forza Horizon and The Crew.
It just always made the game uniquely immersive as a driving game experience, how you could just drive and drive around an island and spend hours just going around it once.
In all reality it won’t touch Forza. Forza is a beast. However it’ll be day one for me and I’ll love it. I haven’t fully looked at all the details released yet, I saw it announced and then might have missed some stuff, hopefully not a crew 2 online only multiplayer Heavy affair and like Forza I can just enjoy in short bursts alone.
I just bought Dakar on steam deck as I read a lot of people complaining it was like need for speed and not a “sim” so I’m happy to dip into that. (Fairly low expectations still) but a rally style arcade game will do me.
This one will be day one if it’s not all MTX/live service nonsense.
I know Forza had loads of that but you can ignore all that it’s still amazing.
Played Forza H2 this week and that’s still one of the best racers of all time. All 5 of them are.
@NEStalgia they are from the picture mode though right? I’d imagine the actual racing won’t look anywhere like that and I’m ok with that.
@JayJ Even more incredibly was managing to squash it onto the PSP!
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