DriveClub is PlayStation’s answer to Forza 5 and to get one up they are giving fans with a PlayStation Plus subscription a ‘free’ version of the game, minus a few tracks and cars.
Until now only a few details were out about the free edition. Today Driveclub’s design director Paul Rustchynsky took to NeoGAF to answer some questions. Here are the highlights of his answers:
- There will be a discount to upgrade to the full digital edition from the PS+ edition, but prices won’t be announced for a few more weeks yet.
- When you upgrade from the PS+ Edition you get the full digital edition which doesn’t require a PS+ subscription.
- You can earn the platinum trophy in the PS+ Edition, remember its the full game minus a few cars/tracks.
- Rear-view mirrors as you’ve seen in the latest direct feed footage just show the environment – you’d be surprised how limited the visibility in the mirrors are for a lot of these cars and for gameplay purposes we want to give the best visibility.
- We are working on a photo mode, but that’s all I can say about it right now.
- You guys wanted uncompressed footage and obviously the PS4 capture utilises some form of video compression to ensure the videos aren’t ridiculously large (the raw direct feed videos we captured are 6GB for 2 minutes of footage).
- We’re working on alternative solutions for trying to get the highest quality vids up online quickly by ourselves.
- No Split-Screen I’m afraid
The lack of Split-Screen is disappointing but the fact that the game has a free version is great. The version truly does seem nearly complete and you can even get a Platinum trophy in it. I do wonder what Evolution Studios are set to gain from a free version as surely this will limit real sales of the game. Maybe they are trying to create a large install base which will ensure that the sequel is a big hit.
What I have seen from the game so far looks good and it’s always nice to have a try-before-you-buy scenario available. I hope this game lives up to expectations as the PS4 needs a big racing game at launch.
DriveClub releases on November 15 in the US and November 29 in Europe along with the PS4’s release.
