After a series of embarrassing delays and botched launches, Shuhei Yoshida has announced that the PlayStation Plus edition of DRIVECLUB is finally ready for release.
Well… “ready” may not be the right word.
As you may recall, Sony’s new flagship racer DRIVECLUB was originally intended to be a PlayStation 4 launch title, but was delayed to ensure the quality of the product. In spite of these sentiments, DRIVECLUB released on October 7th in an incomplete state, with the game’s dynamic weather features arriving two months late, and the PlayStation Plus Edition completely missing.
That was over nine months ago, and in the time we’ve spent waiting for the game’s PlayStation Plus “demo,” many have found the full product to be mediocre at best, even landing on our most disappointing games of 2014. With a “low C” on Metacritic and a user score of 5.9, I honestly expected Sony to release the full game as a PlayStation Plus title before ever seeing the actual PlayStation Plus Edition.
Apparently, I was wrong. Yesterday, DRIVECLUB reappeared on the PlayStation Store for just a moment, only to disappear shortly after. The official Twitter page had this to say:
Store update today with the DRIVECLUB PS+ Edition was premature. The servers aren’t ready yet, so it’s been removed while we get them ready.
— DRIVECLUB (@DRIVECLUB) June 23, 2015
Servers are hard, guys.
Facing these lingering server issues that have apparently plagued the game’s development since October of last year, Shuhei Yoshida is pleased to announce that DRIVECLUB PlayStation Plus Edition will release tomorrow, June 25th… without any online functionality.
In the same announcement, Yoshida states that Evolution Studios will begin rolling out online functionality to users on the same day, but offers no estimate as to when all users will have access to the servers. This doesn’t bode well, considering the game’s history with network stability. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that DRIVECLUB‘s PlayStation Plus Edition might not be online and fully operational for a while.
I guess we’ll all see tomorrow when DRIVECLUB Playstation Plus Edition appears on the PlayStation Store… if it doesn’t disappear hours later like it’s already done two times before. Everybody keep your fingers crossed.
