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Two weeks on from its planned release in the US, Evolution is still unable to say when the free PlayStation Plus Edition of Driveclub is going to be released.
Furthermore, while there does appear to have been some improvements to the game’s online features, significant problems persist.
PS Plus Edition news will come as soon as we have concrete info – sorry to keep you all waiting,” the developer said.
We can see that the majority of you can now get online, but we know that at peak times of the day it can still be hard to get connected, so we are still working to improve connectivity with every update to the servers.
We can also see that when you do get connected, some of you are having a hard time getting into multiplayer races and that posting leaderboard results can sometimes take a lot longer than you’d expect.
These connectivity issues stem from the same unforeseen server problem that we’ve been working to get on top of since we launched Driveclub, and while we are getting on top of the problem now, we are still working round the clock to keep improving gameplay for you.”
Driveclub was named as a PS4 launch title way back at E3 2013 but less than a month before the console’s launch was pushed back to 2014.
In March Sony admitted that it had gone back to the drawing board” on the title before it was revealed shortly after that game director Col Rodgers had quit Evolution.
A new release date was announced in April and in October Sony detailed exactly what would be included in the free version offered to PlayStation Plus subscribers.
Two days before the UK release, however, Sony announced that the PS+ Edition would be temporarily held back while early problems with the game’s online functions that were plaguing the US launch were ironed out.
It soon became evident that the issues ran deep, with Evolution admitting that the saga was completely unexpected. The studio did begin to reactivate some online features that had been temporarily disabled but did confess that bugs in the code – and not server load – were responsible for the issues.
It has since refused to commit to a release date for the PS+ Edition and while it has insisted that the situation for players is improving, the overall impression from gamers is that online functionality remains patchy at best and still broken for many.
All of which is a crushing disappointment for PS4 owners who had been eagerly anticipating the game for over a year. The question for Sony now is whether multiplatform titles such as The Crew and Need for Speed Rivals: Complete Edition will be enough to quell racing fans’ thirst or whether the allure of Forza Horizon 2 might be enough to sway a few toward Xbox One.
