Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown handles well but fails to reclaim the open-world racer throne

With more delays than a Christopher Walken monologue, it was always going to be fascinating to see what kind of shape Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown would be in when it was eventually released.

Originally scheduled for release in September 2022, publisher Nacon kicked the can down the road numerous times, first to 2023, then to early 2024, then to a vague general “2024” – but now, here we are, two whole years after its original release date, and it’s finally ready.

Was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no. Solar Crown is a perfectly enjoyable racing game but it suffers from numerous polish and performance issues that make us wonder if even delaying it by two years might still have been rushing things a bit.

Named after the competition in the last Test Drive Unlimited game (which was released a whole 13 years ago), Solar Crown’s plot revolves around the return of the titular championship. Set this time in Hong Kong Island, the player – via their own created avatar – has to take part in various races and other events in an attempt to build recognition and eventually win the Solar Crown itself.

The plot is a little on the light side, but what’s there is ridiculous. After landing on the Solar Crown’s huge skyscraper hotel in a massive drone, you meet the competition’s organiser Vivian Hughes, who’s wearing a comically futuristic shiny silver outfit.

This futuristic vibe continues to the cars themselves, as you’re soon told that every car you drive in the game has been fitted with the latest technology, including an AI assistant (you’re going to want to turn her voice off pronto, which you thankfully can).

One particularly quirky design choice is the way the game justifies the HUD – rather than just displaying your position, timer, map and the other usual racing game elements without any explanation (like every other racing game), you’re instead shown your racer putting in a special contact lens with augmented reality features built in. It’s all very silly but sure, why not.

For the most part, Solar Crown involves driving around the game’s open world – which is a recreation of Hong Kong Island – and taking on races and various other challenges. Anyone familiar with the Forza Horizon games should know roughly what to expect here.

That may be considered a slightly unfair comparison given that Test Drive Unlimited was doing the whole open-world exploration thing before Forza Horizon appeared on the scene, but the reality is that in the 13 years since Test Drive Unlimited 2 there have been five Forza Horizon titles, meaning the Xbox series may not have invented the genre but it’s certainly the standard-bearer today.

As such, despite Solar Crown’s ancestry it’s hard to play through the game and not continually draw comparisons to Forza Horizon, and in those comparisons Nacon’s game usually comes off second best.

The game’s performance is one of the more disappointing elements. Players can choose between Quality and Performance graphics modes, with the latter running at 30 frames per second and the latter aiming for 60. The key word there is ‘aiming’, because we played on PS5 and while it’s perfectly smooth for the most part, there are numerous moments – and not infrequent ones – where the frame rate tanks for a good 5-10 seconds and it’s really distracting.

This usually doesn’t happen when you’re just exploring, and in our experience it’s most frequent during races when there are opponents in front of you, and seems to be worse when using one of the in-car views. Given that it’s not the most strikingly detailed racing game ever made, however, it’s still disappointing when it occurs, because it’s not just an odd stutter here or there.

It should also be pointed out that the game has an always-online requirement, something Nacon appears unwilling to change. Given that open-world racing games are likely to appeal to solo players, this is going to prove to be an annoyance for some. Nacon says it’s because the Solar Hotel hub and the HQ of the clan you join were “created as living areas and meeting places”, but it does feel unfair to drag players into this if they have no desire to mingle while they motor.

The handling is far more of a success story. Solar Crown is developed by Kylotonn, which under its KT Racing label was responsible for seven WRC games and a bunch of other off-road racers, so while it has a racing heritage it’s not usually used to tarmac. You wouldn’t know it by playing this – car handling is tight, taking corners is satisfying and the overall feel is solid.

As for where this driving takes place, Hong Kong Island is a large map and players are actively encouraged to explore it – not only to take part in the races that are frequently added to it, but also to find the various other landmarks including gas stations, meeting points, car dealerships, wrecks (which can be salvaged) and the like.

Completionists will also want to colour the entire map white by driving along every road, while around 300 hidden collectibles – consisting mostly, but not entirely of extra cash – can also be found off the beaten track. These are thankfully marked on the map, because trying to find the last few in a location that size would be true needle-and-haystack stuff.

Despite all this, however, it’s hard to become entirely enamoured with the game’s setting. Recreating such a large area must have been no mean feat and on a technical level it’s impressive, but so much of it is lacking in character. Where other open-world racing games have landmarks and areas that the player can grow familiar with and maybe even attached to, so much of this recreated Hong Kong Island feels like it serves its purpose and not much more.

Part of this is down to a general lack of attention to detail – while the city itself may be modelled well, the little extras which can make the difference are missing, and there are plenty of areas which feel rather generic – perhaps understandable given the sheer size of the map, but the decision was made to make it that size, after all.

For a location with plenty of shopping districts, the number of shop designs is extremely low. On a single strip of road we drove past the same Maxi Drinks shop five times, and the same Jamais Vu clothes shop three times. It may be a minor thing, but it’s the sort of corner-cutting – and not in the useful racing sense – that can kill immersion once you notice it, and gives the impression you’re playing a product that has had a “that’ll do” mindset applied to it at times.

Indeed, “that’ll do” is the phrase that sums up Solar Crown in general. It’s by no means a bad game, but it doesn’t stand tall as one of the pinnacles of the genre either.

Long-time fans of the series – and given it’s been 13 years since the last one there probably aren’t many short-time fans – will just be happy to see Test Drive Unlimited back, and it’s not like Solar Crown is an affront to the series’ legacy or anything like that, far from it.

Buying Solar Crown won’t really be a mistake, then. It’s a perfectly acceptable racing game that suffers from an uninspiring world map and some performance issues, neither of which drag the game down to a ‘must avoid’ status but do play their part in ensuring you’ll have a pretty good time with it, but nothing more rousing than that.