Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown Silver Sharps Edition

I wanted to love this one. After more than a decade without a new Test Drive Unlimited, KT Racing had all the time in the world to build something special, and Hong Kong Island is a genuinely inspired setting for an open-world racer. The 1:1 recreation of the map has personality, the car roster includes some real highlights, and the core loop of saving credits, walking around a dealership, and taking a dream car out onto those elevated highways has a low-key charm that the series always did well. So it stings when everything around that loop is held together with wet tissue. The always-online requirement is the first and biggest problem. There is no offline mode, no pause button mid-race, and at launch the servers were so unstable that multiple reviewers reported spending more time staring at login queues than actually driving. Even after patches, persistent connection problems kept dragging the experience down. On PC specifically, the situation gets worse: the game is abnormally demanding for what it puts on screen, with framerates tanking on hardware that runs far more technically impressive titles without breaking a sweat. The visual quality does not justify the performance cost, and upscaling tools only partially patch over the mess. For racing wheel owners hoping for a clean force-feedback setup, the rocky technical foundation means your mileage will vary significantly depending on your rig. When you do get into a race, the handling sits in an uncomfortable middle ground. It is not as approachable and immediately fun as Forza Horizon, and it is not sim-precise enough to satisfy players who want real physics depth. Sprint races, time attack events, and speed traps give you things to chase, and the social spaces like the hotel lobby and upgrade shops where you can see other real players tinkering away are a genuinely nice touch. The club system, where you join a faction and challenge other players out in the open world, had real potential. The problem is that the PC player base collapsed fast. The game peaked at just over 5,000 concurrent Steam players at launch and now rarely sees 300 in a 24-hour window. An MMO racer needs people in the world to work, and right now the world feels empty. Progression leans slow and deliberate by design. Cars are expensive, and the intent is to build a real sense of ownership over each one rather than showering you with vehicles. That philosophy is interesting on paper but grindy in practice, especially when the event variety runs thin and the AI behaviour can be erratic. No crossplay between PC and console platforms means the already-thin PC population stays siloed. For anyone hoping to recreate Saturday night co-op tournament energy with a group of friends, the lack of split-screen and the dependence on healthy online servers make this a hard sell compared to basically any kart racer or Forza Horizon title you already own. The Silver Sharps Edition bundles in additional content on top of the base game, but no amount of extra cars or cosmetics fixes the underlying issues. There is a version of Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown that could be worth revisiting if the servers stabilise, the PC performance improves meaningfully, and the world fills back up with players. Right now, on PC, that version does not exist yet.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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