DriveClub has come all the way, right? The ill-fated Evolution Studios produced this equally ill-fated PlayStation 4 exclusive racer, and to say it's been a tough time would be an understatement. Its time on the road has almost come to an end, as Sony pulled the title from the PlayStation Store. More than that, the servers will be shut down starting today. Those who still have DriveClub will be disconnected from the titular clubs and will forever have to slip through the offline rain.
One thing you can say for the game is that it's been at the heart of everything good and bad in this console generation. Announced alongside the PS4 itself in February 2013, DriveClub looked stunningly gorgeous from the start. It was one of Sony's first flagship titles, along with Killzone: Shadow Fall, to really show off the power of its new machine. As with many Worldwide Studios teams, Evolution was aiming for something a little more serious for PS4. Motorstorm was raw, aggressive and messy; DriveClub was more sophisticated, simple and more beautiful.
The developer also made it clear early on that they plan to support the game post-launch with lots of additional content. “Ultimately, the game you buy at launch will be the gateway to a larger experience that will be fed with new content every week,” came comments from director Col Rodgers. “It will all be free, and the DriveClub experience when it comes out will be absolutely massive.” The game was also planned to be a child of the first poster for PlayStation Plus on PS4. A free version of the game with fewer cars and tracks would mean an instant community for this socially driven racing game.
Things started to go a bit off-road when it was announced that DriveClub would be missing out on its PS4 launch day release date. It was delayed for several months, and finally launched in October 2014. The time was filled with tantalizing clips and claims from Sony that development was going well.
However, once the game was live, things quickly fell apart. Major server issues forced Sony to delay the free edition of the PS Plus game while Evolution raced to fight the fires. It was a terrible start for the racing game that championed online play, and the issues would linger for several weeks. Eventually DriveClub got back on track, but the damage had been done; the game's reputation was in tatters.
It would, however, be a shame to remember DriveClub as a failure. Over the years, the racer has slowly become one of the best on the PS4, thanks to the Herculean efforts of the now shuttered Evolution Studios. From implementing new types of weather and replays to launching all-new tracks, cars and events for free, the developer has gone above and beyond to try and regain the trust of its players. And to be honest, the game ended up selling well despite the issues.
However, that wasn't enough to save the studio. He was hit with numerous layoffs and the rest of the staff continued to come up with game-changing fixes. Eventually, the PS Plus edition of the game was released, and the months that followed would see DriveClub balloon in size and quality. It gradually found its potential with this new model of “Games as a Service”.
Unfortunately, a huge blow was dealt when Sony made the decision to completely shut down Evolution Studios in March 2016. The team then made DriveClub VR for the newest virtual reality technology, but that was the end of the studio's efforts on the game. DriveClub was finally the game it promised to be, but the company that made it disbanded. Much of the team later created Onrush for Codemasters, while others migrated to other teams within Sony.
This largely concluded DriveClub's transformation, but what a transformation. It's gone from that delayed PS4 launch game with all the server issues to one of the console's best and brightest runners, with arguably the best season pass on the system. The developer held on long enough to see its ambitions of a truly connected social racing title come to fruition. For years after Evolution shut down, the game continued to run in the background as a quietly shiny PS4 exclusive.
As we said at the start, it's been quite an extraordinary journey, one that has lasted the life of the PS4. Again, it could be said that DriveClub draws parallels with almost all the pros and cons of modern games. Reliance on online features meant the title was stalled on the starting line, but countless patches and content updates meant it could slowly make a triumphant return.
Now you won't be able to purchase DriveClub digitally, and the online features so essential to the experience are disabled. So we've reached the end of the line, but anyone who owns the game can still climb into the driver's seat for offline road trips. Will you miss this troubled PS4 racer now that he's been written off? Wave the checkered flag in the comments below.
