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Well, this one somehow slipped under the radar. Evolution Studios’ PS4 social racer Driveclub is set to feature India amongst its many exotic locations.
This new detail was revealed when The Guardian visited the developer’s studio to check out the game in action.
Driveclub is a co-op and multiplayer focussed racing game that encourages players to form clubs, race together, and take on other clubs. It will be a launch title for the PS4 when it launches later this year and a version of it will be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers for free.
The Guardian offers a terrifically vivid description of Driveclub’s India track.
‘The mountain we’re driving up is two kilometres high. In the distance, a patchy landscape of tea plantations and scrublands stretches out toward the horizon. Above us, bulbous clouds crawl by, scattering vast grey blankets of shadow.
The Audi R8 V10 weaves its way through snaking roads, the sun occasionally glinting across the windscreen, the crumbling surface almost palpable beneath the tyres. This is India, accurately and rather epically modelled into a racing game. At this height, at the very tip of the mountain range, the artists have had to think about the curvature of the Earth, and how this will affect sunlight and cloud patterns at the furthest reaches. This is where game visuals are going.’
The mix of mountains and tea plantations certainly point towards a setting in the north east of India.
Evolution reportedly embarked on months-long field trips to get the architecture, geography and habitats of the region just right. While Driveclub doesn’t feature real-world locations, the track features ‘many miles of landscape, loaded with authentic local detail’.
Another part of the preview describes a ‘drive along a river bed, through a valley of looming rock walls and out along a concrete overpass’.
"We’ve picked locations; and seasons that are indicative of the locations," technical art director Alex Perkins said. "I can think of three roads that we went along in this location that looked just like this; it’s about capturing the soul of the roads and the networks".
Aside from India, the preview also makes mention of Canada being incuded as a location.
We should be hearing more about Driveclub from Gamescom later this month, where Evolution plans to show a lot more than just the Scotland track it brought to E3.
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