In 2006, long before the Forza Horizon series on the Microsoft side, and well before The Crew on the Ubisoft side, the little French Lyonnais at Eden Games produced one of the car games that would overturn and revolutionize racing games. This game was Test Drive Unlimited, a game that offered to live in luxury automobile. A few years later, Test Drive Unlimited 2 landed on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. And again, the game has attracted a lot of players.
Alas, in 2013 Eden Games closes and Test Drive Unlimited 2 will not have the fate it would have deserved. No follow-up, servers that will soon be abandoned and a promising license that will disappear. A large part of the Eden Games teams will join Ivory Tower to position themselves on the development of The Crew and The Crew 2 on the side of Ubisoft. Despite this, the soul of Test Drive Unlimited will not really be transcribed in The Crew.
Today, nine years after the last opus, Nacon and KT Racing, a French studio in the Paris region (who have worked on games like WRC, TT Isle of Man or V-Rally 4) are about to revive the license, to the delight of fans.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown sur next-gen
Unfortunately, you will still have to be very patient to see a real trailer as well as gameplay videos for this “TDU 3” which will now be called Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. Because yes, what we can already say is that the game is not ready to arrive. The latter has been in development for only a few months and no release date is planned. The game is also planned only on PC and next-gen (PS5 / Xbox Series X).
A few seconds of teaser and a few minutes of explanations from Alain Jarniou, the creative director at KT Racing who is in charge of the project. First good news, he also participated in the development of the first two Test Drive Unlimited in 2006 and 2011.
Among the first information that we have, the teams have decided to resume the famous competition “Solar Crown” that we found in TDU 2. From this principle, the teams wish to leave great freedom to the players to progress in their own way in the Game.
The idea behind the return of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is to keep the soul of TDU, while making changes to make it more modern and improve the physics and driving engine. KT Racing was fortunate to be able to experiment with new driving styles thanks to their work on games under the WRC license. We can therefore think that off-road racing will make a comeback (with SUVs as in TDU2) and that we may even be able to rally. Anyway, thanks to the WRC series, KT Racing can now offer diverse and varied driving styles on asphalt and more!
Like the first two games, prestige and luxury cars with the Ferraris, Lamborghini and Bugatti will be back. The personalization of our avatar, of our clothes will be too. And after the life-size reproduction of the Hawaiian island of Oahu (1500 kms) in the first opus, as well as that of Ibiza (380kms) in the second, the KT Racing teams will offer a new island at scale 1: 1. An island that remains secret for the moment. We only know that it will be a real island and that it will be possible to visit the whole island. Everything you see, even if it’s not on the road!
Many questions remain unanswered, such as having (or not) motorcycles, whether the weather will be present, the day / night cycle, the “MMO” side to play with other players online and Moreover. But as Alain Jarniou indicates, development has been underway for only a few months and the teams plan to take all their time to offer the best possible Test Drive Unlimited. To be continued !
