Driveclub looks set to go down in the record books. Not in terms of sales (though it doesn’t seem to have done badly), and not in terms of critical acclaim (professional reception seems to average out at ‘lukewarm’). It currently holds the two somewhat embarrassing trophies that have emblazoned upon them in luminous metaphorical green ‘Longest Delayed PS4 Exclusive’ (it was due to be a launch title until the last minute, remember?), and ‘Most Disastrous PS4 Exclusive Launch’. We imagine it’s little consolation to the poor development team that, as the console is in its infancy, there’s plenty of time for other games to snatch these dubious awards.
Another award it already has is ‘Most Delayed PlayStation Plus Game’, and the delay is now nipping at the heels of a whole year. Toddle over to the game’s official Facebook page (where the majority of updates on the whole sorry affair turn up first) and you’ll see confirmation that there is still no date for the free, albeit watered-down, PSPlus version. More worrying perhaps are the troubles experienced by those who have forked out extortionate next-gen prices for their copy who, the developers humiliatingly (but admirably) admit,”are having a hard time getting into multiplayer races [and] posting leaderboard results can sometimes take a lot longer than you’d expect.” That’s when players are able to connect at all; something that can still be tricky to achieve in this game which, as seems to be the depressing trend, puts a huge emphasis on “social” (ugh) features and online connectivity.
The “Drive together, win together” tagline that sits sheepishly on the Facebook page (in small letters, over on the left) seems somewhat ironic at the moment…
The majority seem to be all angry about this. I suppose there’s a call for it, but then, maybe they were never slapped hard across the chops when they whined about things taking too long as a child. In an unrelated statement, I’d just like to say that while I was excited about Drive Club the unfortunate tidal wave of problems this game has faced just makes me sad that it went the way it did.
I’ve also turned my attention towards The Crew. That seems like it’s gonna do the social thing better than DC and give me the open world I was hoping DC would be, so they kinda saved me money with their unfortunate bumbling out of the gate.
Shame. I do wish the devs luck after all this.