Jump to content
N-Europe

Recommended Posts

Posted

The new tracks are pretty great. Visually, they look great and it's nice to be able to drive around a city track. I hope we see more tracks soon. A new country would be excellent. Maybe some more snow tracks? Or perhaps the option to have snow in other locations, such as Scotland.

 

The new tracks look great when transitioning from dark and dry to dawn/day and rainy. I love the transitions in this game.

  • Replies 627
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • 1 month later...
Posted

So I want to buy the DRIVECLUB Bikes standalone but it seems I can't because I own the PS+ version of DRIVECLUB. So I can get the expansion (slightly cheaper) but I'm guessing if I ever didn't have PS+, I'd lose access to DRIVECLUB Bikes??

Posted (edited)

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!

 

347.gif

 

CeKbkqMWAAAjyZ4.jpg:large

 

Sony's revealed a sucker punch today: Evolution Studios, the storied Runcorn-based developer behind DriveClub among numerous other PlayStation exclusives, has been shut down. The studio was downsized last year, but the ongoing success of DriveClub – along with the release of DriveClub Bikes and continued development of DriveClub VR – seemed to suggest that the British firm had weathered the storm. That's not the case.

 

The company released the following statement, which we've included in its entirety below:

 

 

Regular reviews take place throughout SCE Worldwide Studios, ensuring that the resources that we have in such a competitive landscape can create and produce high quality, innovative and commercially viable projects.

 

As part of this process we have reviewed and assessed all current projects and plans for the short and medium term and have decided to make some changes to the European studios structure.

 

As a result, it has been decided that Evolution Studio will close.

 

It is regrettable that this decision will lead to compulsory redundancies. We accept that this decision will mean that we risk losing high calibre staff but by focusing on other Studios that already have exciting new projects in development we believe we will be in a stronger position going forward and able to offer the best possible content of the highest quality for our consumers.

 

Where possible we will try to reallocate people onto other projects. If appropriate opportunities are not possible within the company, we will assist staff in any way we can, including speaking with local employers and with other development companies.

 

Evolution has been an important part of SCE Worldwide Studios for over 10 years - working on ground-breaking racing titles like WRC, Motorstorm and DRIVECLUB.

 

This decision should not take anything away from the great work that Evolution has produced.

Edited by Cookyman
Posted

I'm not crying - I've got some dust in my eye!

 

A lovely piece from Push Square

 

Soapbox: Evolution Studios Had Miserable Luck But Will Be Greatly Missed

 

Thu 24th Mar 2016 by Sammy Barker

 

 

Sammy Barker says goodbye to a dev with real identity

 

There are certain studios that get under your skin, irrespective of output. With the greatest of respect to all of the talented people at production powerhouses like Ubisoft Montreal and EA Canada, said developers don't really exude the kind of identifiable culture that's prevalent at Media Molecule or Guerrilla Games. It always hurts when any studio closes, of course – but it's worse when it's one that you feel like you have a personal connection with.

 

Evolution Studios, for me, was one of those.

 

This week's reveal that the Runcorn-based developer would be dissolved hit hard because it felt like it had weathered the storm. DriveClub was, of course, a disaster at launch – delayed and still not really ready for primetime. But the studio achieved the impossible: it not only fixed the game and repaired its reputation – but it also remodelled it as one of the generation's finest racers. Ironically, we'd been discussing writing our first ever re-review only last week.

 

Evolution Studios knew what was coming: ex-employees have been acting alarmingly upbeat online – disappointed that they've reached the end of the road, but proud of what they've achieved all the same. While this is still obviously all sad news, that's nice to see; in an industry that seems to feed off unexpected redundancies, it's refreshing that the Brit team got to send off DriveClub on their own terms – it named one of this week's DLC events 'The Long Goodbye', for example.

 

But if the truth be known, Evolution Studios has had miserable luck for many, many years now. MotorStorm Apocalypse immediately springs to mind – a game that was initially delayed globally due to the tsunami disaster in Japan, pushing it right into the middle of the PlayStation Network outage storm in North America. Despite receiving universal critical acclaim, the title flopped commercially for reasons entirely outside of the Runcorn developer's control.

 

MotorStorm RC, the outstanding PlayStation 3 and Vita spin-off, seemed to steady the ship, before DriveClub was instantly sucked into its own cyclone of bad press – mostly pertaining to the free PlayStation Plus version that was promised on an E3 stage, but seemed to take an age to be delivered. I'm not playing the blame game for any of these scenarios, but the studio has been locked in some kind of drama for years now.

 

And yet there's one consistent throughline spanning its early PlayStation 2 rally titles all the way through to DriveClub on the PS4: the studio's only ever made top-tier racing games. It proved with the WRC series that it could handle realism, before pivoting to the more bombastic with MotorStorm. And then, in DriveClub, it managed a mixture of both – an accessible arcade racer with all of the depth of a simulation, married to one of the best looking graphics engines on Sony's new-gen system.

 

But while I'll miss the dependability of Evolution Studios' output, I'm already mourning its underpinning identity – the drum-and-bass soundtracks, the distinctive user interfaces, and the perfectly honed handling models. The arcade racer has endured more than its share of setbacks in recent times, but the closure of Evolution Studios this week may have hammered the final nail in the genre's coffin.

 

At least I'll have many happy memories to look back on. Thanks for everything, Evo.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

I forgot to mention that I finally managed to play Driveclub on the private rooms on Friday with 7 others.

 

It was marvellous - I've never managed yet (sadly) to get the n-europe community to play collectively like this.

 

It's really good fun and there was a lot of verbal being dished out for some questionable driving.

 

Am I being naïve in thinking I could get some of our community to perhaps participate in a race night?

  • 4 months later...
Posted

Now that's a nice gesture!

 

DriveClub VR's New Tracks Will Be Added to Base Game for Free

 

A thank you to fans

 

There's been something unexpectedly sweet about the closure of Evolution Studios. Don't get us wrong, it's bitterly disappointing to see the developer shut down – but we're used to these kinds of stories ending badly. In the case of the Runcorn-based company, though, the team's been kept together by Codemasters, it's getting a swansong in the form of DriveClub VR, and it's even got a parting gift for fans.

 

original.jpg

 

For those of you who don't know, the virtual reality version of the dev's PlayStation 4 racer will come with some brand new tracks. Of course, that's left those uninterested in PlayStation VR pondering whether the content will be made available as DLC for the main game. Well, we have even better news than that: it'll be patched in for free as a thank you for fans.

 

"The new tracks will be added to DriveClub in a free update as a thank you for your continued support," game director Paul Rustchynsky explained on Twitter. Sure, it's a small gesture, but it's a nice one all the same, isn't it? There's no word on when the update will be made available for the base game, but you can probably expect it around the same time as DriveClub VR's release. The virtual reality racer is due later this year.

  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...
Posted

I'm still enjoying Drive Club (much to my surprise :hehe:) and just purchased the Bikes DLC and Season Pass as they're on offer :smile:

 

I applied to join the N-E club recently.. how does that work? ::shrug: Who needs to accept me?

Posted
I'm still enjoying Drive Club (much to my surprise :hehe:) and just purchased the Bikes DLC and Season Pass as they're on offer :smile:

 

I applied to join the N-E club recently.. how does that work? ::shrug: Who needs to accept me?

@Cookyman is the guy for that.

 

I'm still enjoying Drive Club (much to my surprise :hehe:) and just purchased the Bikes DLC and Season Pass as they're on offer :smile:

 

I applied to join the N-E club recently.. how does that work? ::shrug: Who needs to accept me?

@Cookyman is the guy for that.

Posted
Normal game. Just Driveclub.

I get this message when I go to add normal Driveclub to my basket:

 

You are not able to purchase this product for the following reason(s):

 

You already own

PlayStation®Plus

So I'm guessing the PS Plus version is the only version open to me.


×
×
  • Create New...