Evolution Studios' PlayStation 4 racer was delayed for most of a year, launched with serious online faults and then earned praise for its post-launch content before the studio closed.
Driveclub is a 2014 PlayStation 4 racing game from Evolution Studios, built around clubs that compete for fame. It launched with serious online problems and mixed reviews, sold over 2 million copies and had its online services switched off in March 2020.
Driveclub is a 2014 racing game from Evolution Studios, released on the PlayStation 4 under the Sony Computer Entertainment label. Its reveal came in February 2013, delayed for most of a year, and launched in October 2014 with a club-based racing structure and a strong focus on its visuals.
What is Driveclub?
In this racer, players enter events staged around the globe, spread across several styles of racing. Races, time trials, drift events and championship tournaments are all on offer, with routes set in places chosen for their scenery. Players can customise their car, their club and their driver, and optional challenges can be completed during events.
Its debut came at Sony's PlayStation 4 press event on 20 February 2013. It was later pushed back several times, and when it finally arrived, its central promise of a social racing world was tested by the online problems that followed the launch.
A club-based racer whose launch problems overshadowed a strong post-release recovery.
How did the club system work?
Clubs are the heart of the game. Players either join an existing club or form their own, and clubs compete with one another to be the best. A club can hold up to six members, and the members complete challenges together, representing the club while earning fame and experience points along the way.
Fame determines both the player's level and the club's level. As players level up, they unlock items such as new vehicles, accolades and colour schemes. Every member's action feeds the club's overall success.
Challenges also feed social leaderboards, so players can compare their results with friends and club mates. Critics who reviewed the game singled out the challenge system and the clubs for praise.
What modes and cars did the game include?
Its three main modes are tour, single event and multiplayer. The first is a campaign in which single-player events set in different locations use allocated cars, with objectives to meet during each race. Single events let players choose the format, whether drift, sprint, race or time trial, along with the location, weather and other options.
The game launched with 50 cars and more than 60 others were available through the PlayStation Store, some for free and some for a fee. Vehicles fall into five classes, ranging from hot hatch up through sports, performance and super to hyper. Each one can be customised with paintjobs and stickers.
The tracks take their inspiration from real places around the world, including Norway and Tamil Nadu in India. Rain and snowfall are handled by a dynamic weather system, and each raindrop behaves realistically. The day-night cycle arrived later with a post-launch update. Its photo mode later became one of the features reviewers praised most.
Each car was built from roughly 260,000 polygons on average. The team had said ahead of release that the game would run at 1080p, locked to 30 frames per second.
Why was the release delayed?
Sony Computer Entertainment announced on 18 October 2013 that release would move into early 2014. Shuhei Yoshida, who ran Sony's worldwide studios, said the team needed more time to deliver its vision for a socially connected racer. A further delay followed in March 2014, when PlayStation's software head Scott Rohde said the game had gone back to the drawing board. The message was that the company would rather hold a game back than ship it unfinished.
In April 2014, game director Paul Rustchynsky blamed the delay on the game's dynamic menu, which let players move quickly between menus, join clubs, race and carry out other activities. Evolution had also experimented with Project Morpheus, but the finished game has no virtual reality support.
How did the launch go?
The first markets were North America (7 October 2014), Europe (8 October) and the United Kingdom (10 October). The launch was marred by severe online connection problems, and the studio responded in November by giving affected players its first premium DLC packs, the Ignition Expansion Pack and the Photo-Finish Tour Pack, for free.
A PlayStation UK executive publicly apologised for the rough start.
The game sold over 2 million copies by 31 July 2015, which made it one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games of its time.
What did the post-launch updates add?
Evolution kept supporting the game for more than a year after launch. A Season Pass announced in September 2014 offered 11 new courses and 23 new events, plus a car every month through to June 2015, a deadline later pushed to July 2015. The pass mixed free and paid content.
A weather patch from Sony arrived on 8 December 2014 and brought in dynamic weather, though the feature came up to two months after launch because the developers wanted every weather improvement in place. In January 2015 a patch brought Japan to the game with five new tracks, including Lake Shoji and Nakasendo.
| Date | Update | What it added |
|---|---|---|
| 8 December 2014 | Weather patch | Dynamic rain and snowfall |
| January 2015 | Japan patch | Five new tracks, including Lake Shoji and Nakasendo |
| 1 April 2015 | Wombat Typhoon tribute | Free car from the MotorStorm series |
| 22 March 2016 | Finish Line DLC | Final premium pack, with events titled Clocking Off and The Long Goodbye |
| 11 February 2016 | Patch 1.26 | First city circuit, Old Town in Scotland, plus hardcore handling physics |
| 31 October 2016 | Patch 1.28 | Five more city circuits, one per country, and reversed variants |
On 1 April 2015 the team released a free pack as a tribute to the MotorStorm series, containing its Wombat Typhoon. Patch 1.28 on 31 October 2016 added five city circuits, one in each country where the game is set, with the variants that had first appeared in Driveclub VR.
What happened to Evolution Studios?
On 22 March 2016, Evolution released its final DLC pack for the game. Sony announced that the studio would close on the same day. Subsequent updates were made by other Sony studios, which kept the game moving despite the closure.
Several outlets revisited the game after the final update and hailed its quality, with Eurogamer summing it up as a launch disaster that grew into a racing great. GamesRadar also published an argument that the studio had been failed by public perception after the rocky launch.
The final update on 31 October 2016 added a batch of new tracks and reversed variants of the VR courses. Afterwards Eurogamer and VideoGamer published retrospectives praising how much the game had improved after release.
What spin-offs came out of Driveclub?
Driveclub had three related releases: a PlayStation Plus edition, a motorcycle expansion and a virtual reality version. Each one was a separate project with its own limitations or focus.
Driveclub: PlayStation Plus Edition was free for PlayStation Plus subscribers. It included all the modes and online features of the paid game, but offered fewer cars and locations. Sony postponed its release on 31 October 2014 to ease the load on servers, and the edition arrived on 25 June 2015 before being removed on 6 October 2015.
Driveclub Bikes arrived on 27 October 2015 as a standalone expansion focused on superbike racing. It added a new tour, a gameplay mode, challenges and events, and the player's result changed their club's reputation. The launch roster held 12 bikes, among them the KTM 1190 RC8R, plus Yamaha YZF-R1 and Honda CBR1000RR machines from the Superbike World Championship.
Driveclub VR arrived on 13 October 2016 as a launch title for PlayStation VR in Japan. It reused most of the original assets, reworked for virtual reality with full 360-degree views of the interior. It contained 80 cars and 84 tracks, plus five new city circuits, and it used its own save file and stats without online leaderboards.
How did critics review Driveclub?
Critics gave Driveclub mixed or average reviews on every platform, and Metacritic recorded an overall score of 71. Praise went to the visuals, sound design and controls, while the online play, inconsistent AI and lack of variety drew the sharpest criticism.
- IGN gave it 7.9 out of 10 and called it the best-looking racing game on a console
- GamesRadar gave it 8 out of 10, praising the challenge system and accessible handling
- Destructoid gave it 7.5 out of 10, citing responsive controls and detailed environments
- GameSpot gave it 5 out of 10, criticising the presentation and the soundtrack
- Giant Bomb gave it 2 out of 5, describing it as a strange throwback to older console racers
IGN saw a restrained, traditional arcade racer, not a sprawling open-world title. Joystiq said the repeated attacks by AI cars spoiled the solo experience and that the lack of difficulty options hurt it. Computer and Video Games praised the club system but found the variety of races and challenges thin.
GamesRadar later re-reviewed the game and raised its score to 4.5/5, calling the post-release content among the finest the medium has offered. It singled out the photo mode and the new wet weather and heat haze effects for praise.
Justin Towell, writing for GamesRadar at launch, praised the challenge system and the accessible handling. He also warned readers against playing without a connection, describing the single-player mode as dull until online play transformed it.
Driveclub VR was nominated for Racing Game of the Year at the 20th D.I.C.E. Awards, which is a rare recognition for a title of that size. Driveclub sold well enough to appear among the best-selling PlayStation 4 games of its generation.
Why did the online servers close?
Sony Interactive Entertainment ended the online services on 31 March 2020, which meant players could no longer access the online features after that date. Storefront removal had already come on 29 August 2019, taking the DLC packs and standalone expansions with it.
The shutdown ended every online feature, including the club and leaderboard systems at the centre of the design.
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