The Casino arrives in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown! In Season 4, we bring the Wintory Casino and other various improvements and features. We will also be adding more content to the game in the mid-season update, so let’s go into all the details!

• New Features (Day One)

  • Casino

  • Stock Restriction Races

  • Group Ping

  • Revamped Worldmap and Filters UI

  • Reworked Active Spoilers

  • Sound Improvement (Apollo IE)

  • Reputation Level Increase To 70

• Mid-Season Update

• New Vehicles

• Patch Notes Overview

The Casino isn’t the only feature arriving in Season 4 that players can enjoy. We added a new style restriction for races, improved the UI, adding a new way to cruise with friends and more! Let’s see what features we added.

The Casino will be located in Macao and accessible via the helipad at the bottom of the map in Hong Kong Island. We have also been able to increase the number of players in this social hub to 32, which should be really cool to see when the players visit!

Inside the Casino you will find a few activities available to you. First, head to the cashier to cash in your Solar Coins to Casino Chips, which will be possible at a ratio from 2 Solar Coins = 1 Casino Chip. Although you cannot cash back your chips to Solar Coins day one, we plan to add this in the mid-season update!

Once you have your Casino Chips, you have a few choices on what you’d like to do with them. You can either:

• Head to the clothing store in the Casino to purchase some luxurious clothing to fit your needs.
  

• Head to the car part store in the Casino to purchase an array of rims or licence plate customisation options.
  

• Head to the Macao Lights slot machine and try your chance at winning the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series as the main jackpot, or 77,777 as the secondary jackpot.
  Using the jackpot is pretty easy, and you have the ability to bet more money on the slot machine with the bonus of being able to win more as more lines are considered. In short, the more you bet, the better your reward can be.

We plan to add Poker and a second high-payout slot machine (1,000,000 Casino Chips) in the mid-season content update, but we will go over this later in the article with more details.

For players who are located in restricted countries and cannot access the Casino, we are working on a solution for you in regards to the ability to acquire the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. We do not have the full details on this yet, but we will let you know before the launch of next season.

After seeing players enjoy the low PR restriction races we did in our live events, we decided to take this a step further by adding 40 stock restriction races in Season 4. Stock restriction races can be found in both Hong Kong Island and Ibiza. We added 20 new races, and we changed 20 existing races to have a stock restriction to create 40 total. For Ibiza, you will see this added to the rotation of races. The events will make you race your vehicle the way it was meant to be, which can create some fun and balanced races for players!

This new feature allows you to create up to a 4-stop itinerary and send this itinerary to your other group members which can create some very fun cruise experiences around Ibiza and Hong Kong Island. To improve this feature, we also improved how the 4 player grouping works by improving our networking. We added this to our Patch Notes article yesterday:

• Improved the gathering of people from the same group.

  • Fixed the issue where players of a group wouldn't end up in the same session

  • Fixed the calculation of the session's score for a given player, now properly handling the members of the group already present and the reserved slots for the group

Now you’ll be able to create groups a lot more easily and meet each other in free roam a lot more easily too!

One of the first things you probably can’t wait to do in Season 4 is remove that ‘voice chat’ icon in TDUSC, so that when you remove all UI, you can finally have a nice clean look!

We also wanted to bring a feature from TDU2 into TDUSC that we think will be very useful to seeing other players on the map. You can now see player cards no matter where they are on the map (up to a 3km distance), but you can adjust this feature in the settings menu with 3 options. 

As for our world map, it was cluttered and it was hard to sort through various sections of it. In Season 4, we have improved this massively. You can now filter through tabs showing your map, tasks, and other players, and you can also manage the POI’s found within the map itself too.

Whether you enjoy the airbake in your Mclaren MP4-12C, or the low drag mode in your Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, you’ll find your favourite vehicle’s active aero has been faithfully recreated, and we unlocked the spoiler option on cars that previously only allowed you to see it automatically! We did this to every car in the game, while also improving existing vehicles' aero systems that were not working at all, such as the Ferrari 488 Pista.

Based on the community feedback in the sound survey, we realised we needed to work on the sound of V12’s. One of the first cars to get an improvement will be the Apollo IE which we also improved further in the mid-season update with more crackles and pops.

The mid-season will bring a lot more bugfixes, improvements and even more content. Let’s quickly cover what you can expect to see in this update.

New Casino Content - In the mid-season content update, we will be bringing some new ways to play in the Casino! We’ll go into more detail on this when the time comes but as you learn about it in the recent Season 4 and Year 2 reveal video, we’ll quickly recap it here.

The Golden Dragon slot machine will be a high-payout slot machine which can provide a jackpot of 1,000,000 Casino Chips.

Poker will give you a choice between 3 different rooms based on buy-in price. Once you enter, you can start a game up and play!

New Vehicle Sounds - Other than seeing a further improvement to the Apollo IE, the Lamborghini Diablo VT will also have an improved sound!

Important Fixes - Although we are working on many new features for TDUSC, we also need to work on fixing some issues players have experienced in the past. Here are some of the few important fixes we have worked on coming in the mid-season update for TDUSC! 

• Achievements Unlocks: Achievements not unlocking for them despite completing the description.

• Empty Friends List: Players on all platforms may run into the issue where they cannot see players on their friends list.

• Time Trial Leaderboards: Players have mentioned that they cannot view the global leaderboards.

Other bug fixes and improvements will be announced closer to the release of the mid-season content update!

In Season 4, you’ll find quite a few new vehicles arriving, so let’s take a look at what the players can be expecting! First, let’s welcome the Aston Martin Valour in the dealership to all players!

The Aston Martin DB11 Volante is another car that will be arriving in the dealership, ready for you to drop the roof for those nice sunny days in Ibiza!

If you’re feeling the need for speed, pick up this Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ and you’ll be able to feel an acceleration like no other!

Our first custom bodykit arrives in TDUSC. This Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe VR Widebody Kit has a widebody kit that was created by the devs at KT, and it won’t be our last either…

An incredibly rare car to see, and a vehicle that unfortunately, will not make it into production, so you could say that it makes this extra special! Say hello to the Delorean Alpha5!

Always wanted to offroad your Huracán? Well now you can! Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato arrives as the level 50 reward for this Seasons Solar Pass!

And last but not least, the Mercedes-AMG GT Black series will join this update as a reward vehicle through the Macao Lights slot machine!

If you missed it, you can find the full patch notes list for Season 4 linked below!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1249970/view/538859942242682797

If you want a quick highlight of some changes and improvements we did in TDUSC for Season 4, we will list a few key bug fixes below.

• Deleted ‘All Road’ suspension upgrades on some supercars and all hypercars

• Some cars' PR's may have changed due to fixes on suspension, gearbox issues, clutch, etc.

• Supersport suspension has been added to various supercars and hypercars

• Fixed suspensions height on stock McLaren MP4 12C

• Suspension PR changes

  • Before, we applied a flat PR amount when installing suspension, but this is not the case anymore and it was misleading with the behaviour of the specs gauge. Now a suspension can make you lose or gain PR and the referential is always the behaviour on asphalt

• New progressive clutch

  • More torque to idle constraint

  • Use acceleration to allow slipping torque at low speed

  • Should give you the ability to park your car easily as long as you use throttle

  • No block when accelerating at middle RPM value (the reported bug where RPM’s stay at a certain value while accelerating has been fixed)

• Hazards will no longer turn on automatically.

• Improved sound on Apollo IE

  • We will increase this vehicles crackles and pops and its signature transmission whine in the mid-season update for Season 4

• Updated dynamic resolution clamp value to improve performance stability (Xbox/PlayStation)

  • Players should no longer have stutters

• Improved the gathering of people from the same group.

  • Fixed the issue where players of a group wouldn't end up in the same session

  • Fixed the calculation of the session's score for a given player, now properly handling the members of the group already present and the reserved slots for the group

And of course, the full detailed patch notes list is now live, and you can see all the details at the link provided above!

Enjoy the Season 4 update and we’ll see you next month in August to discuss the mid-season content update in more detail in the following Solar Club Letter!

• The TDU Team

Discord Instagram Twitter/X Facebook Subreddit Website

Season 4 will be arriving tomorrow on July 23 and will come with the Casino, new races, features, and various improvements and quality of life fixes! Some important things have been done to the network to improve the grouping of players, and you’ll find all the details below. We also worked heavily on vehicle dynamics so be sure to check out that section too! We will have a dedicated Season 4 launch article to explain what you can expect this Wednesday but you’ll be able to find all of the details in our developer documentary that was released yesterday!

Maintenance Confirmation: We will be starting the server maintenance at 9:00/9:30am CEST and the maintenance could last up to 4:00pm CEST. We will keep you updated on our progress during the day.

• Casino

  • 32-Player Social Hub

  • Cashier - To buy Casino Chips (withdrawing added in later update)

  • Slot Machines - 1 type (another added in later update)

  • Car Part and Clothing

• Stock Restriction Races

  • Added 20 new races, changed 20 existing races to stock restriction

• Group Ping/Shared Route System & 5-Route Planner

• Revamped Worldmap and Filters UI

• Reworked Active Spoilers

• Increase Reputation Level Max To 70 (Previously 60)

• New Cars

  • Aston Martin DB11 Volante (Car Dealer)

  • Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series (Casino)

  • Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe VR Widebody (Solar Pass)

  • DeLorean Alpha 5 (Solar Pass) 

  • Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato (Solar Pass)

• Ranked Cars In Dealership

  • Aston Martin Valour

  • Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+

• New Live Events

• New Solar Pass

• Improved shadow performance

• Updated EULA

• Added maintenance notification directly in-game

• Increased rewards of daily challenges

• The Solar Hotel now displays the car at the last level of Solar Pass

• Improved player race line generation

• Merged calendar and news menu

• Fixed a crash when completing 'Highway to Heaven' in IBIZA island

• Fixed a crash when completing the Sprint race 'Skyscraper Parade'

• Fixed a crash when completing the Time Attack race 'Into the Docks'

• Fixed crash when quitting game with an active message box

• Fixed a crash when adding multiple photos as favourite

• Fixed car clipping with the delivery car in 'Delivery - M4 Competition' contract

• Fixed NPC and player's character sometimes clipping with the ground during car delivery's cutscene

• Added facial animation during the end of the race podium

• Fixed an issue where avatars would not appear on the end of the race podium.

• Improved various NPCs animations in HUBs

• Fixed an issue where collision SFX were played when running into a displayed car in any HUBs

• Fixed an issue where texts would disappear in some menus

• Updated rarity on several car skin appearances

• Resolved various clipping issue on clothes

• Updated car delivery missions spot images

• Added Solar Pass quick access on main menu

• History now show if the player has already been solar king

• Fixed issues where reputation gain was delayed

• Improved render of cars and clothes thumbnails

• Share more information between group players ( league, money, gender, etc.)

• Added SFX related to Solar Pass reward unlock

• Fixed an issue where traffic would change lane abruptly

• Added photo download errors handle

• Fixed an issue where the rain drops would fail to fall on the interiors of any open roof car

• Fixed an issue where the 'Time to beat' text in the info card of race lobby failed to match the 'Time to beat' text in the race initial cutscene

• Show a default thumbnail when when the 'Hide Custom Liveries' option of the 'Streamer Mode' settings is turned on

• Fixed a camera issue when changing vehicle while in cockpit view

• Fixed an issue where some clothes could change the avatar's skin colour

• Added new spot Images for each gas station on HKI

• Fixed voice chat controls not visible when default channel is disabled

• Fixed photo in full screen being download all over again

• New lighting on Hippodrome race track on Hong Kong Island

• Fixed various clipping issues with vehicles and steering animation

• Updated Koenigsegg Agera RS dashboard

• Fixed suspensions height on stock McLaren MP4 12C

• Fixed accessible suspension upgrades on Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series & Mercedes-AMG SL 65

• Updated hitboxes of all cars

• Improved LED blinkers rendering

• Updated aero flaps and wheel on Ferrari 488 Pista

• Added bumper Spoiler on Lamborghini Huracán Performante

• Fixed bumper holes on Lamborghini Aventador SVJ.

• Added new aero system to Lamborghini Centenario

• Added new aero system to Lotus Evija

• Added new aero system to Pininfarina Battista

• Added new aero system to Ferrari 488 Pista

• Added new aero system to Lamborghini Countach LPI 800 4

• Added new aero system to Lamborghini Huracán (All editions)

• Activate the rear wipers when going in reverse

• Fixed suspensions on Buggy

• Added semi slick tires on Alfa Romeo Mito

• Deleted ‘All Road’ suspension upgrades on some supercars and all hypercars

• Some cars' PR's may have changed due to fixes on suspension, gearbox issues, clutch, etc.

• Super Sport suspension has been added to various supercars and hypercars

• Suspension PR changes

  • Before, we applied a flat PR amount when installing suspension, but this is not the case anymore and it was misleading with the behaviour of the specs gauge. Now a suspension can make you lose or gain PR and the referential is always the behaviour on asphalt

• New progressive clutch

  • More torque to idle constraint

  • Use acceleration to allow slipping torque at low speed

  • Should give you the ability to park your car easily as long as you use throttle

  • No block when accelerating at middle RPM value (the reported bug where RPM’s stay at a certain value while accelerating has been fixed)

• Hazards will no longer turn on automatically.

• Improved sound on Apollo IE

  • We will increase this vehicles crackles and pops and its signature transmission whine in the mid-season update for Season 4

• Improved sound on DeLorean DMC12

• Enabled SARD Anti-Cheat

• Updated dynamic resolution clamp value to improve performance stability

  • Players should no longer have stutters

• Updated dynamic resolution clamp value to improve performance stability

  • Players should no longer have stutters

• Better Stability and Performance

• Improved the gathering of people from the same group.

  • Fixed the issue where players of a group wouldn't end up in the same session

  • Fixed the calculation of the session's score for a given player, now properly handling the members of the group already present and the reserved slots for the group

In this section of the patch notes, you will find some things that we are working on improving for future releases of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown as our commitment to be more transparent. Understand that there are priorities given to some topics over others, and some are harder to investigate and solve than others, so no timeframe can be given currently unless otherwise specified. That said, here are all the future fixes and improvements we are working on:

• Achievements Unlocks: Achievements not unlocking for them despite completing the description. (Example: VISIT ALL DISTRICTS, GPS COORDINATOR)
  ETA: Bug solved, gone to Quality Assurance (Mid-Season Patch)

• Empty Friends List: Players on all platforms may run into the issue where they cannot see players on their friends list.
  ETA: Bug solved, gone to Quality Assurance (Mid-Season Patch)

• Time Trial Leaderboards: Players have mentioned that they cannot view the global leaderboards.
  ETA: Bug solved, gone to Quality Assurance (Mid-Season Patch)

• Logitech G920 Wheel FPS Issue: Players mention while using the Logitech G920 wheel, the game causes extreme FPS drops.
  ETA: Under Investigation

• Steering Filtering/Animation: Vehicle steer animation is behind player input which affects keyboard and controller inputs.
  ETA: Under Investigation

• Missing Rims: Players mention the American Racing VN507 Gloss Black rims are missing from their inventory.
  ETA: Under Investigation

• Logitech G923 Wheel PC/PS: Players mention the Logitech G923 wheel does not work correctly when using the PC/PlayStation version.
  ETA: Under Investigation

• Moza Wheel: Players mention their Moza racing wheels cannot change the in-game rotation angle
  ETA: Under Investigation

• Paint Change Server Error: Players mention they cannot upgrade or change the paint on their vehicle and they are met with a server error
  ETA: Under Investigation

We of course also have many other bug fixes and improvements we are working on, and we will continue to give you further details in future communications!

Africa

• Algeria

• Egypt

• Libya

• Mali

• Mauritania

• Morocco

• Sudan

• Tunisia

Latin America 

• Argentina

• Brazil

• Cuba

• Ecuador

Asia and the Middle East

• Afghanistan

• Azerbaijan

• Bahrain

• Bangladesh

• Bhutan

• Brunei

• Cambodia

• China

• India

• Indonesia

• Iran

• Iraq

• Israel

• Jordan

• Kuwait

• Lebanon

• Malaysia

• Maldives

• Nepal

• North Korea

• Oman

• Pakistan

• Qatar

• Saudi Arabia

• Singapore

• Sri Lanka

• Syria

• Taiwan

• Thailand

• Türkiye

• United Arab Emirates

• Vietnam

• Yemen

Europe

• Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Czech Republic

• Greece

• Iceland

• Montenegro

• Poland

• Portugal

• Serbia

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• Ukraine

Oceania

• Australia

• Fiji

• Papua New Guinea

• Samoa

• Tuvalu

We hope you enjoy the fixes and features coming in Season 4 and all of the Year 2 information you have learnt in the ‘Behind the Scenes: The Future of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’ video yesterday! We will see you again for the mid-season update which will bring Poker, a second high-payout slot machine, and the ability to cashback your Casino Chips should be present along with any other fixes and improvements to the game.

• The TDU Team

Discord Instagram Twitter/X Facebook Subreddit Website

Today we showcased to the world our next steps over the next 12 months to bring the Test Drive Unlimited franchise passion back into the hearts of many! If you’ve missed the video, we highly recommend you check it out as you’ll see a lot of gameplay and behind the scenes footage of some of the future features we are working on!

That said, let’s go into all the details about what the future will bring for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown!

• Year 1 Retrospective

  • Season 1

  • Season 2

  • Season 3

• Season 4

• Important Topics

  • Cross-Region

  • 8 Player Group

  • Car Selling

• Year 2

  • Season 5

  • Season 6

  • Season 7

  • Season 8

  • New Brands

• Beyond

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown launched on September 12 2024, however, it was not a strong launch for us as we had issues with the games servers and it was not representative of the TDU DNA the players wanted to see in the game, but it is something we look back on to move forward to continue to improve the game. So before we talk about the future, let’s talk about the past!

Season 1 was the launch of TDUSC. It brought over 100 cars at launch with dealerships, workshops, the Solar Hotel which came with 4 liveable spaces, a 6 car garage and an island recreated at 1:1 scale, Hong Kong Island. It also brought the first Solar Pass, live events, and other features. Players often mentioned the physics and car sounds of the game were well created, and it’s something they saw was a good base that we needed to improve on.

Season 2 brought Ibiza! It was faithfully recreated at a 1:1, but only the town of Evissa was made. This created a great contrast between the two islands, similarly to what TDU2 offered for players. Ibiza welcomes back an old character from the Test Drive franchise, Tess Wintory, and her brand known as Selene which had 6 vehicles customised. It brought a new social hub, clan stores, rotating races, and an increase in the clan influence level cap. We also brought an improvement to the wheel animation with 900 degree steering!

Season 3 was initially planned to be the Clan Wars update, but after player feedback, we decided to delay this update theme and instead bring highly requested features by the community to change the direction of the game. This is where our future started. In Season 3 we brought back:

Car Delivery Missions - A highly requested feature from the past TDU games that is essential to improve the TDU DNA. In this new game mode, you are able to deliver vehicles for customers to the location of their request. We dressed some of these contracts (the name for missions in TDUSC) with some props to make it feel more immersive, especially compared to the previous TDU2 car delivery missions. Players seemed to enjoy this new method of playing, as it took them away from the racing.

Navigation Races - In this game mode, the player GPS and map HUD are disabled and the player must make it to a location and park the vehicle before the timer ends! It gave a new way to race from point A to B in TDUSC as it meant learning the map was your advantage!

Quick Pause/Restart - A feature that was also highly requested was being able to pause and restart races quickly. We delivered this day one in Season 3.

Ability To Race Solo - At launch, every race you did in TDUSC was grouped into multiplayer and races would populate with AI for the players who did not join. We finally gave players the ability to launch solo or multiplayer versions of each race. 

Selectable AI Difficulty - AI difficulty selection as another largely requested feature, and we delivered this in Season 3 to the community!

Customisable Licence Plates - We gave players the ability to have more ways to customise their vehicle with custom licence plates they could dress their cars in!

Season 4 will be released on July 23 with a planned maintenance. More details on this will arrive in tomorrow's patch notes article! Season 4 introduces the Casino, an eagerly anticipated feature coming into TDUSC that is a part of the TDU DNA. So let’s discuss the Casino, and more!

Casino - The Casino features will be split into two updates, so let’s talk about what you can find in both!

• Day One Update (July 23) - At launch, the casino will offer two stores; a car part store where you can purchase rims and licence plates, and a clothing store where you can find luxurious clothing items. You will also find a slot machine in which you can earn a reward of a Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series as the main jackpot, or 77,777 Casino Chips as the secondary jackpot. You’ll be able to buy Casino Chips at a ratio of 2 Solar Coins = 1 Casino Chip. 

• Mid-Season Update (late-August) - The mid-season update arriving in late August will bring a high-payout slot machine (1,000,000 Casino Chips), and poker which you will have a choice between 3 different buy-in rooms for! We also aim to bring the ability to cashback your Casino Chips to Solar Coins in this update.

Poker will give you a choice between 3 different rooms based on buy-in price. Once you enter, you can start a game up and play!

Group Ping - Group ping is finally here! In the launch of Season 4, we improved the ability to group with 3 other players as we improved our network infrastructure. With this, we brought Group Ping, which allows you to create up to a 4-stop itinerary and send this itinerary to your other group members. Now, you can create the perfect multi-stop cruise in Season 4, and we can’t wait to see some of the cruises done with this feature!

Active Aero Improvement - Finally, your Bugatti Veyron’s will have their accurate active aero modes and airbrake! In Season 4, we went through every vehicle on the current car list and faithfully recreated their active aero features, so you can enjoy your vehicle the way it’s meant to be seen!

Freeroam UI Improvement - We have improved two main areas of this. First, you can now finally remove that ‘voice chat’ icon in TDUSC, so now when you remove all UI, you can finally have a nice clean look!

Another improvement we did is player cards. You can now see player cards no matter where they are on the map, but you can adjust this feature in the settings menu. This should help you find other people in the world similarly as you did in TDU2!

World Map UI Enhancement - Previously, our world map was cluttered and it was hard to sort through various sections of this world map menu. In Season 4, we have improved this massively. You can now filter through tabs showing your map, tasks, and other players, and you can also manage the POI’s found within the map itself too.

Stock Restriction Races - We found that the upgrades in TDUSC do not provide an optimal ‘TDU’ experience in TDUSC, and players enjoyed the low PR restriction races we did in our live events, so we decided to take this a step further by adding 40 stock restriction races in Season 4. Guillaume had this to say in the developer documentary:

“Test Drive DNA is like using your car in stock, no upgrade, and another part of the thing is to do more balanced races between players because we know that some cars are meta by keeping upgrades in these things. 20 other races from the progression will change and become stock races too. So in total, we have 40 races in the game with stock restrictions now”

These 40 races will be found throughout Ibiza and Hong Kong Island and we are excited to see you try these out at the launch of Season 4!

New Vehicles - In Season 4, you’ll find many vehicles arriving! Here are all the cars you can expect to see at the launch of Season 4:

• Aston Martin Valour (in dealership)

• Aston Martin DB11 Volante (in dealership)

• Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ (in dealership)

• Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe VR Widebody Kit (level 1 Solar Pass car)

• DeLorean Alpha5 (level 15 Solar Pass car)

• Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato (level 50 Solar Pass car)

• Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series (casino car)

Now, it’s time we discuss some very important topics and future features that we have heard players discuss on social media. A lot of what we will discuss in the section we don’t have a release date on, but we are actively looking into and working on it for the Year 2 roadmap!

One of the most important ones is cross-region; the ability to play with others from other continental regions, cross-play; the ability to play with other platforms. Currently in TDUSC, we do not have either of these features, which we know diminishes the MMO and player interaction experience in TDUSC. Cross-region implementation has a higher priority in our view compared to cross-play, especially based on player feedback on social media.

That said, we can confirm we are working on cross-region, but being able to solve this requires a large change in our current networking infrastructure, and with that, it means a quick fix will not be possible, however we know it’s something the community has requested greatly, and although we can’t give you a solid release date on it yet, we will make sure we keep you up to date on our progress on these features in the coming months! Watch out for our monthly Solar Club Letters for updates on these features as we continue the development of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown.

This is a special one! We heard from the TDU community (and specifically DIMONEYMAN on Discord), and we will be bringing 8 player groups into TDUSC in a future season in Year 2! We don’t have a release date on this, but we are making progress on its current testing on our developer build. We will inform you when it's ready!

Of course we need to bring this highly requested feature to the community! We don’t have a specific season on when this will arrive, but it will for sure be in the Year 2 roadmap!

Selling your car will work similarly as it did in TDU2, however, the price of your vehicle will depend on how much distance you have driven it for. So make sure you haven’t driven the car you want to sell much when this feature arrives!

Of course Season 5 will improve the graphics and performance, but that won’t be the end of our engine enhancements. Here is what our Technical Director Fabien has to say:

“Season 5 will see the arrival of a revised version of our rendering pipeline, allowing us, among other things, to better balance between the CPU and the GPU. This is a first step, in a larger campaign of optimization and we plan to build on this pipeline reorganization to make further optimizations over the next seasons. But the rendering pipeline is not the only area we are working on to improve quality and performance. We continue to optimize the code in general, the VFX, the physics, the AI, new rendering options, and more… to make the game even better and of course, we are also continuously working to improve the stability and performance of our servers and online services”

That said, we will keep you informed in the future Solar Club Letters as we continue to work on the improvements coming to TDUSC!

A couple of months ago we created a survey form for players to give us their feedback on the current vehicle sounds in TDUSC. Based on this document, we will be working on some vehicle sounds over the next seasons. We have some of the results of the poll here below.

As you can see, we have already fixed the DeLorean DMC-12, Apollo Intensa Emozione, and the Lamborghini Diablo VT. Our sound designers are currently working on the vehicles arriving in Season 5, but rest assured the improvements on sound is something we will continue to work on over time. There are some vehicles that are not voted high that we think also need a larger attention, such as the Mclaren MP4-12C.

The Apollo IE will also see an increase in its crackles and pops and its signature transmission whine in the mid-season update for Season 4.

Guillaume also mentioned in the developer video that things such as more sliders is something we can look into adding in the future too. We hope the TDU community continues to give us their feedback over the next seasons, and we appreciate your support!

Year 2 is our love letter of improvements and features to the TDU community and this is where you’ll see the TDU DNA come alive! Let’s get right into what you can expect to see over the next 12 months!

Season 5 is another heavy hitter into the world of the TDU DNA and improvements coming to TDUSC. Not only are we bringing Taxi Missions back in a lot more depth when compared to TDU2, we are bringing physical clothing stores, and enhancements to the KT Engine, and more! Let’s get into all the details coming in Season 5!

Taxi Missions - These new missions will arrive day one in Season 5! You will be bringing a client from point A to B but there is a lot more depth to this. The players will try to do it while respecting highway code, so they won't be allowed to drive recklessly as usual. They’ll do this by having to respect the speed limits, signalization, etc. They will have to not shake the clients.

Every client has a unique persona, and every client won't be sensitive to the same stuff. So a client in a hurry will let you drive a little faster, but a sick client won't want to be shaken. So they will really be unique and the players will have to adapt themselves to them.

There still will be a restriction about cars but, the way you dress will come up, and some clients will expect you to dress nicely, elegantly, or maybe more chill. This will be completed by a new dress code UI system that will be implemented in Season 5!

There will also be requests, so clients will ask you to open your windows, close your windows, maybe switch on the radio or change your radio station. They can also ask you questions. So, every now and then they will ask you some daily stuff and you have to think about the persona of the clients and the right answer is the answer they expect.

We will have a full gameplay of this closer to the launch of the season!

KT Engine Enhancements - Season 5 will be the start of the continued improvements over multiple Seasons in Year 2 to improve the optimisation and graphics in TDUSC. Let’s discuss what players can expect to see in Season 5

To start, the world time cycles have been reworked, the city, the lighting in the cities, the bouncing lights, the rendering on the cars, and a lot of technical stuff has been changed drastically to render the lighting in the game.

Another thing we have done, especially seen from player feedback, is it will rain less and the rain puddles will appear less on Hong Kong Island. So now, you’ll only see puddles appearing when it rains.

For those looking for FSR 3.1, we will not have it ready for Season 5, but we are working on it. We are also working on XeSS from Intel and we'll keep you informed as soon as it is ready for release.

Reflections on water are also a large issue in TDUSC, and we are happy to say that we completely reworked the water shader to be able to have a much better rendering.

We also have some special treatments for the beaches. This gives us access to more parameters so the artists can get as close to the references as possible. We also reworked the beach foam and it looks more visually appealing to the player.

We also worked on shadows so they have a much better dim light.

We will share specific performance gain details when we are closer to the release of Season 5. We will also let you know of other improvements to the KT Engine that will arrive when we are closer to Season 5, and of course any Seasons after!

Physical Clothing Stores - Remember that tease we did before the launch of the developer documentary? Well this was it. In Year 2, we are going back on some already released features and bringing them into the TDU DNA light. One of the first things we are doing is turning the current menu-based clan stores into physical, walkable locations! Here are some work in progress screenshots of the locations! We still have some lighting work to do, but rest assured, our lighting artists are doing an incredible job on the final iteration of these stores, and we are excited to see the doors open in Season 5!

Economy Improvements (Phase 1) - In Season 5, we will be bringing a vast amount of improvements to TDUSC for its economy. This will be ‘phase 1’ of the overall economic improvements in TDUSC, and a ‘phase 2’ and ‘phase 3’ will follow. As our game director Guillaume mentioned in the video:

“We had a lot of complaints about how the economy is actually balanced. We know there is a reason behind it and, for sure, the community is telling the truth here”

That said, let’s discuss what players can see in Season 5 first.

• Phase 1 - Season 5 will improve a lot of areas of the economy, and players can expect to see the following.

  • Levelling & Solar Coins increased by at least 50%!

  • Increased Crown Jewel payouts; 1,000,000 Solar Coins (before bonuses).

  • Balancing the degradation of rewards according to position in races.

  • Revising how FRIM works.

  • Increased gains on collectibles, speed traps and discoveries.

  • Added Solar Coins when completing Live events in addition to the reward.

  • The percentage of gains from driving aids will remain unchanged.

Any other improvements will be confirmed closer to the release of the season.

• Phase 2 - In the second phase, we plan for this to change how some features are working such the speed traps and the replayability of speed traps or other features that have a core relation to the games economy. These have to come at some point because it improves the minute by minute reward.

• Phase 3 - This has to come in the free roam. We can’t talk a lot about this as we currently have some game designers working on it. This phase may not be in Year 2, but as we mentioned above, we need to improve the minute by minute reward, not letting the people go in the races and have to repeat the race over and over again to 

As usual, you will be able to find other features and quality of life improvements along with bug fixes arriving in the Season. More details will arrive closer to the release of the Season!

Season 6 is where we involve YOU, the community! As mentioned in the video, we have given you a choice of missions to feature in Season 6, and you get to vote on which one arrives! Let’s go into all the details about this now.

Community Mission Request - We have given you a choice between 4 different missions that you can have added to the game for Season 6. It is worth noting that if the mission you chose doesn’t get chosen, it does not mean that we will not consider the mission for a future update, and there is a chance we can bring it into the game at a later date! Let’s go into the  details of each of the missions.

• Detective - This will be a game mode that's actually oriented towards, a bit of the tail mode, as we called it in TDU2, but it's a slightly more fun tail. This will be done by looking for clues, etc. We'll have a whole cool dimension around the game mode before getting into the tailing. It's not just the car part, there will be a small investigation part too. The thing that's important in TDU is also the story side and we will really bring back the notion of telling a story through the game mode.

• Delivery - In this game mode will be orientated around the multiplayer in TDUSC, by moving from point A to point B, or other different cases. It's a rather special contract that will take place in free roam where the goal is really to play with others and try to make deliveries together. So that's a game mode that can be quite cool, that's quite new, and it will avoid having to enter a lobby to be able to do things together.

• Photography - This is going to be similar to the game mode found in TDU2, but with more depth. As an example, we have a prompt, we ask the player to go take a photo in free roam, and they have to go take it. This will also come with a large advancement in the photo mode camera in TDUSC.

• Adrenaline - This is another game mode that people will be familiar with as it comes from TDU2. The concept was you can drive anywhere on the map during the mission, but the goal is to raise an adrenaline gauge as high as possible and burst it. You do this by high speeds, drifting, passing in between cars, etc.

How To Vote? - To vote for the mission, follow the link below. Voting will end August 4, 2025 at 12am CEST! We will be posting the results in the August Solar Club letter which will come in the following week or so after!

VOTE HERE!

As usual, you will be able to find other features and quality of life improvements along with bug fixes arriving in the Season. More details will arrive closer to the release of the Season!

Season 7 will bring a large improvement to how the gameplay loop will be performed and a vast improvement to the matchmaking system in TDUSC. Let’s go into all the details about Season 7’s features now!

Enhanced Live Events & Solar Pass - Although it sounds small, it's really important we change our Live Event and Solar Pass dynamics. We have to change that because on the Solar Pass side, it's about the grinding part that is problematic. With Live Events, the problem is that all the content is centered around racing. So we have two problems here, and we want to change that. For Live Events, we want to create other ways to complete them by adding different challenges by playing with the car of the event like we do for the race, but apply it to some other features in the game. For the Solar Pass, finding a way to stop the repeated grind for the content, and then raise the income of the Solar Pass, although we already did this in Season 4. This feature and what it entails is still in the game design stage, so we can’t give you all the details, so stay tuned for further communications about this feature for more information.

Official Racing Center - The Official Racing Center is going to be very important to the launch of Season 7 and the community playing TDUSC. This walkable interior space located at the Hong Kong Island racetrack known as the Hippodrome, will allow players to load into a playlist. You will be able to boot into ranked, or unranked races here. We are working on another feature to come with the ORC, which we are going to keep a secret for now, but as we get closer to the season, we’ll be sure to tell you!

As usual, you will be able to find other features and quality of life improvements along with bug fixes arriving in the Season. More details will arrive closer to the release of the Season!

The big one, houses! As expected, the principle is that players, in addition to buying cars, will be able to buy houses, and obviously, houses that are bigger and bigger are more and more expensive. Above all, the house ultimately becomes a bit like your headquarters. Compared to past TDU games, we really went all in on this, so let’s take a look at all the details!

Houses - In TDU SC, we're still going to keep some things from TDU2. For example, you'll have to buy your house from a real estate agency that is walkable of course. So you drive over to the real estate agency, look at the listings, and then buy your house, but this is where we take real estate to a whole different level compared to TDU2. The customisation part. When a player buys the house, it will be empty and the player will have to customize their house by placing furniture. So, the customization won't be the same for everyone and they can place the different objects anywhere. The goal is to have spots in certain places where they can place these objects, however, the goal is to still be able to control the area limits so that players can still move inside. 

The same goes for other areas of the housing. It's the walls that are white, and that's it, so it is now up to you to choose the décor for the walls, the floors, and then place the furniture you want to see in your house. This means friends who may have bought the same house in the same place will have a completely different house. So it makes even more sense to go visit the houses of your friends. 

We aren’t going to stop there though. The goal is that we want to extend this customisation feature to the garden, although this specific garden customisation feature may not arrive on day one of housing.

Regardless, we really give the impression that you have something unique in your house. The other part is, of course, the garages because when we talk about TDU houses, we're obviously talking about garages. Similarly, having a small house, it's a small garage, having a medium house, it's a medium garage, having a large house, it's a very large garage, and then you can take pictures in it, show them to other players, so you can really expect what you got in TDU2, but a lot more! It is also the reason we are taking a long time to develop the housing feature in TDUSC.

Another thing coming with housing in Season 8 is that you can finally be able to do things with your friends, more than what we could do before in TDU2. Depending on the size of the house, you will have the opportunity to see the cars of our friends at the house on your driveway!

To further this feature and the immersion, while we continue to develop the houses, players will already be able to see the map evolve a little and see where we'll build the different houses. This is taking a page from TDU2’s book where before the arrival of new locations we would discover places under construction with cranes, players will be able to see them

The principle is that houses arrive in the game and that will encourage players to even re-explore the island a little, so they can discover where the houses will arrive and then when they want to buy them. That is everything you need to know about Season 8’s houses so far, and we can’t wait for the TDU community to have fun with this feature when it releases, and we truly appreciate your patience as we work hard to bring you the best houses ever!

As usual, you will be able to find other features and quality of life improvements along with bug fixes arriving in the Season. More details will arrive closer to the release of the Season!

We are bringing many new car brands into TDUSC for Year 2! Let’s quickly recap what those brands are!

• Pagani

• DeTomaso

• Mitsubishi

• Mazda

• Puma

• Michelin

• & more…

We have also confirmed 2 new vehicles which will be arriving in Season 5. The DeTomaso P72, and the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera!

Of course we won’t stop there. We have many plans to exceed what the TDU franchise offered to players previously, and we hope you enjoy this exciting ride ahead for TDUSC’s future improvements. We are thinking about many things to come into TDUSC after Year 2. From bikes, to yachts, and much more. Continue to leave your feedback on our social media as we grow TDUSC further, and further!

We look forward to seeing you experience Season 4 on July 23 with the patch notes arriving the day before. See you in another Solar Club Letter in the future, and we thank the community once again, for your continued support! See you soon…

• The TDU Team

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Hello TDU fans,

Tomorrow we showcase to the world our next steps over the next 12 months to bring the Test Drive Unlimited franchise passion back into the hearts of many! Below is the link to the YouTube premiere! The video will be in 4K, however due to YouTubes premiere feature, the video will be 1080p during the premiere. Please refresh the page after the premiere ends to see the video playback in 4K!

• Time Zones

• Quick Tease

• Giveaway Details

• Season 4 Patch Notes Release

Those of you who may not be using the CEST time zone, please use this time zone guide below to know when you can catch the live premiere of the future of TDUSC!

As a bonus, here is the tease posted on the official Nacon Racing social pages! Even then, we have a lot of surprises in store for you during the developer documentary!

Don’t forget, during the premiere, head over to our Discord at https://discord.gg/testdrive and discuss with other community members for a chance to win the following:

• (2) Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) Aston Martin Valour (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) 250,000 Solar Pass XP (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) 5,000,000 Solar Coins (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) Gold Edition of TDUSC

• (2) Silver Edition of TDUSC

• (1) Regular Edition of TDUSC

We’ll be picking random members and announcing the winners the following day in the Discord!

We’ll be releasing the patch notes for Season 4 July 22 at 6pm CEST, and as usual, you’ll be able to find a ‘future improvement’ section of the patch notes to address some confirmed fixes arriving in the mid-season update which is set to release late-August.

We look forward to seeing you experience the future of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown during tomorrow's developer documentary! See you soon!

• The TDU Team

Discord Instagram Twitter/X Facebook Subreddit Website

In 10 days, you will learn everything that is coming in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’s future in a dedicated ‘Behind the Scenes’ documentary! You’ll be able to find the ‘Behind the Scenes: The Future of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’ documentary streamed on our Nacon Racing YouTube. Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss it!

Nacon Racing YouTube

• When?

• 10 Day Countdown Details

• First Tease

• Season 4 Release Date

• Casino Cashback Confirmation

• Season 5 and Year 2 Car Reveal Tease

• Community Highlight Series

As mentioned above, the ‘Behind the Scenes: The Future of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’ documentary will be streamed on the Nacon Racing YouTube in 4K on July 21st, 2025 at 6pm CEST. To see what time that is in your timezone, we already have you covered! Check the graphic below for your timezone!

Also, we will be giving away some stuff during the livestream to give thanks to our community! During the event, we will be choosing some players to win:

• (2) Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) Aston Martin Valour (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) 250,000 Solar Pass XP (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) 5,000,000 Solar Coins (must already own TDUSC)

• (2) Gold Edition of TDUSC

• (2) Silver Edition of TDUSC

• (1) Regular Edition of TDUSC

These will be given out at the launch of Season 4 in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown! To have a chance at winning, please join our Discord at https://discord.gg/testdrive and we will be announcing the winners after the ‘Behind the Scenes: The Future of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’ documentary ends!

Over the next 10 days, you will be learning more about what’s to come in the documentary. Follow our TDUSC and Nacon Racing social media pages to make sure you don’t miss out on it. Each day, we will be teasing gameplay of the Casino, showing what’s coming in Season 5 and much more before the release of the developer documentary.

Our first tease is a large one! Take a look at our Year 2 roadmap, with some hidden and blurred material! Can you guess each Season?

Each Season in Year 2 will also feature other Quality of Life improvements and other features which we will cover in the developer documentary. Even then, we weren’t able to cover it all and we will continue to be more thorough in the upcoming Solar Club Letters, so stay tuned!

The release of Season 4 is still set to release in the following week after the release of the developer documentary with an exact date being given next week! The mid-season update which brings the second slot machine, poker, and more bug fixes and improvements will arrive at the end of August. We’ll be providing more details on this in the August Solar Club Letter.

Some good news for Casino fans! We can confirm the ability to cashback your Casino Chips to Solar Coins should be arriving in the Season 4 Mid-Season update, just in time to get your earnings from playing Poker with friends or the high payout slot machine!

It’s not a new letter without a tease! Season 5 is the next Season arriving after the Casino in Season 4. It’s early, but we’d like to announce one of the first cars that will be arriving in Season 5, so say hello to the first right-hand drive vehicle – and not the last, coming to Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera!

As we mentioned in the last letter, you can expect many new brands to arrive in TDUSC’s Year 2, well good news, one of the first new brands arrives in Season 5! You will learn about what vehicle it is in the upcoming developer documentary, but you’ll see it teased during the 7 day countdown too!

Also coming In Year 2, a Season dedicated to Asian vehicles, with 2 new brands arriving!

Throughout Year 2, you’ll see some exciting vehicles revealed that have been highly requested from players, with some not seen in open-world racing games before. We have plans to continue this beyond Year 2 by using your feedback.

As usual, it’s time to show the two winners of this letters community highlight series!

Congrats to DIMONEYMAN and ItsGuarav_1 for winning! Head over to our Discord and share your photo in the TDUSC-PHOTOS channel for a chance to appear next time! We will also start involving in-game rewards to the winners of the series!

We are finally happy to reveal the date of our upcoming developer documentary for TDUSC! Don’t forget, you’ll be able to find the S4/Y2 documentary released on our Nacon Racing YouTube. Follow now to make sure you don’t miss it!

Nacon Racing YouTube

• The TDU Team

Discord Instagram Twitter/X Facebook Subreddit Website

It’s time to learn all about the vehicles coming at the launch of Season 4 in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown! Before we get into that, we want to remind you that this month our upcoming TDUSC Season 4 and Year 2 Documentary arrives! Be sure to keep posted on our Nacon Racing social media pages to not miss the reveal and date!

• X

• Instagram

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Casino Vehicle

• Vehicles Arriving In Dealership

• Solar Pass Vehicles

• Console Performance Improvements In Season 4

In Season 4, the Casino arrives. At launch, the 'Macao Lights' slot machine can offer the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series as its primary jackpot, or 77,777 Casino Chips as its secondary jackpot.

Similar to TDU2, there will be 2 versions of slot machines. One is meant to provide a vehicle as a jackpot, the other to provide a lot of Casino Chips. That said, we mentioned earlier on our social media pages the Mid-Season 'Golden Dragon' slot machine can offer a jackpot of 1,000,000 Casino Chips. Although not at launch, when you convert your chips back to Solar Coins in a following update, that's 2 million Solar Coins in earnings due to 2 Solar Coins = 1 Casino Chip!

You’ll also be able to find a clothing store, and a car part store! However, as we are focusing on vehicles, here’s a tease and some rims you can expect to find in the store!

Don’t forget, you will also be able to find Poker arriving in the mid-season update too! You’ll see gameplay of this in the S4/Y2 Documentary!

This season will have a surplus of vehicles as we changed a gameplay mechanic. To quickly recap, before Season 4, we had a ranked vehicle that players could earn if they achieved Solar Court or above in the previous Season. That vehicle was then available to all players in the dealership the Season after. This meant when we marketed a vehicle for a Season, players could not access it for another 3 months, and then all players couldn't access it for 6 months. It was also an issue because ranked is currently not an optimal experience. So starting Season 4, Ranked no longer rewards players with a vehicle, only money, and what vehicles were ranked, arrive in the dealership on day one! Here’s a full reveal of all the vehicles arriving in the dealership on day one in TDUSC’s Season 4 launch!

The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ is the Season 2 ranked vehicle reward arriving in the dealership for all players in Season 4! Good news, you will finally see its wing work, along with many other vehicles!

Although arriving at the start of Season 3, this vehicle finally makes its accessible debut in TDUSC, and is the first time the Aston Martin Valour makes it into an open-world racing game! Enjoy this beautifully crafted vehicle with a manual shifter, and a great sound!

Nothing screams TDU more like cruising in a convertible car with the roof down! The Aston Martin DB11 Volante is the perfect vehicle to experience some of those summer vibes in Ibiza! Head to the dealership to pick this vehicle up on day one!

Last but not least, let’s go over what vehicles you will be seeing for Season 4’s launch! Just like the ranked vehicle distribution, we have improved the Solar Pass too. Here is how it will work for Season 4:

• At Level 50, all players can unlock the signature vehicle of the season. 

• If you own the Solar Pass, you’ll get even more: 

  • At Level 1, instantly unlock an exclusive vehicle the moment you buy the Solar Pass.

  • At Level 15, you can grab another vehicle. (This vehicle can also be obtained instantly with the VIP Solar Pass as it unlocks 20 levels)

  • And at Level 50, join everyone in unlocking the signature vehicle of the Season

So now that we explained this, let’s go through what vehicles you will see!

First, let’s introduce the Level 1 (Premium Tier) Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe VR Widebody Kit! This is the first time we are introducing bodykits in TDUSC, and you will see some more things that we are working on to improve the customisation aspect of TDUSC over the next Seasons. We still understand the TDU community doesn’t want to see ‘wild’ customisations, and we think what we have in store for you will be exciting!

The DeLorean Alpha5 arrives for the Level 15 (Premium Tier) slot in the Season 4 Solar Pass! If you have the VIP Solar Pass, this car will instantly unlock for you because the VIP Solar Pass will skip 20 levels. Don’t forget to take your pictures of this car when the wing is up!

The Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato arrives to all players upon reaching level 50 of this Season's Solar Pass! Explore all of the trails found throughout Ibiza and Hong Kong Island to get the most out of this vehicle!

And these are all of the vehicles arriving in TDUSC’s Season 4!

Good news console players! In Season 4, you should see a slight increase in performance, especially those who are on PS5 with stuttering issues.

More fixes are planned for the Season 5 KT Engine update which will be applied on all platforms. With this, you can also expect an improvement in the game's graphics. The areas that are set to improve focus on the games lighting, weather, water shaders/reflections, shadows, vehicle reflections, and an improvement on performance/optimisation. As we said before, we will be able to share before and after screenshots/gameplay of these improvements in the Dev Doc, and closer to the release of the Season 5, we can confirm the specific gains on performance for all platforms.

Our amazing vehicle artists are working hard on the next seasons ahead, and we are really excited to show you what vehicles we have coming in Year 2 of TDUSC! Don’t forget, you’ll be able to find the S4/Y2 Documentary released on our Nacon Racing YouTube and Twitch. Follow them now to make sure you don’t miss it!

• Nacon Racing YouTube

• Nacon Racing Twitch

- The TDU Team

Discord Instagram Twitter/X Facebook Subreddit Website

Hello TDU community and welcome back to another Solar Club Letter! Last month we teased what you will be seeing in the Season 4 update. You learned about our improved vehicle distribution where we have added a vehicle to the Solar Pass system, improved ranked vehicle distribution so you can now buy what was previously a ranked reward vehicle day one at the start of the season, future economic improvements, the Casino redesign to look more ‘TDU’, and more!

If you want to catch up on last month's letter, CLICK HERE, but now let’s go into the details of this month's letter!

• What’s Next?

• Offline Mode Topic

• Season 4 Further Details

• Feedback Topics

• Developer Diary

• Community Spotlight

Season 4 for TDUSC will be launching in the 2nd half of July. This will feature the Casino, new cars, new quality of life improvements, and more. Before the launch of the season, you will see our biggest asset created for TDUSC so far. What is it? Well, last week, we were at Kylotonn’s Paris office to record the upcoming Season 4 and Year 2 Developer Diary. Of course as the name suggests, this will go in detail on what you can expect to see in Season 4, Season 5, Season 6, Season 7, and Season 8 of TDUSC. We will cover more of this in detail later on in the letter.

If you haven’t seen it already, we have created a new page called Nacon Racing. This is where you’ll be able to find future livestreams, gameplay, trailers, and more related to TDUSC. Be sure to follow the socials here for more details:

• X

• Instagram

• YouTube

• Twitch

Like we did last Season, you’ll be seeing the Patch Notes for the game go live before the update, and of course a Launch Article to celebrate the release of the Season. This will be our first ‘Solar Club Letter: Season Launch’ article too, and although of course the topic will be what is coming in the mentioned Season, Season 4 will recap the Dev Diary and Y2 as well.

As we mentioned above, stay tuned on our socials for more details as we get closer to Dev Diary and the launch of Season 4!

As we said before, a big part of improving Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is making sure we take the community’s feedback. Offline has been a topic we have seen mentioned often, and it’s something we briefly discuss in the Dev Diary too, but we want to let you know what our plans are for the game’s offline ability sooner, than later, so let’s discuss this now.

Currently, TDUSC is an online focused live service game, and a lot of the games features are associated with the games networking. That said, to disassociate the games features from the networking system to bring a fully offline experience requires an extensive amount of development, which would take away from the other improvements and features of TDUSC. This isn’t us saying offline isn’t important, but it's us saying that we need to work on improving the game and its TDU DNA so that when offline is something we can bring to the table, the game has an incredible offline experience to offer. We already started this by bringing solo mode to races, Navigation Races, Delivery Contracts, Casino Slot machines, and so much more, some which you will learn about in the Year 2 Dev Diary! We, of course, are even thinking on ways to improve the solo gameplay experience beyond Year 2 too!

Another reason why players mention offline is because we encountered many server problems from launch. This is something we are going to continue to improve over the next Seasons to make sure things like group play in races, freeroam, and other areas of the game work more efficiently. We also want to remind you in Year 2, we have an exciting way to improve the matchmaking for regular, and ranked races in TDUSC. You’ll again learn about this in the Season 4 and Year 2 Dev Diary.

To reiterate, we will continue to improve the networking functionality on the game and we are looking into the possibility to make sure when the game's life does come to an end, it will be fully playable when the time comes and when it does, we will be able to detail this more, but for now, let’s continue to improve TDUSC and bring the glory back to the TDU name!

We really want players to enjoy the improvements we have made to TDUSC over the next Seasons and future, and the TDU legacy for the years to come. This is why we call it our passion project.

Although we teased what you can expect in Season 4 last month, there is still much to tell! We won’t spoil everything, that’s what the Dev Diary is for, but let’s go a little bit more in-depth.

First let’s discuss the Casino. As we said in the last letter, the Casino features no augmented reality as we move forward to bring a more TDU immersive feel with our interior designs; and we’re excited for the community to see more of this in the Dev Diary!. As for the content, at launch, the Casino will have slot machines day one, and then another casino gameplay feature and more slot machine styles at the mid-season update. The mid-season update will of course also include further bug fixes and quality of life improvements too.

Don’t forget you’ll be able to find a dedicated clothing store and car part store in the Casino, but the Casino isn’t the only thing you’ll see at the launch of Season 4. We will be increasing the reputation level from Level 60, to Level 70 too! Further, you will be seeing UI improvements, new vehicles, new race restrictions, quality of life improvements and more! We will also reintroduce SARD into TDUSC, and we will detail this a bit more in the Dev Diary.

We want to inform you that unfortunately due to restrictions on ratings and gambling, the Casino will not be available in all countries where TDUSC is playable. We will cover this in a dedicated letter next month for the launch of Season 4. For a similar reason, the ability to cashback money at the Casino will not be possible at the launch of Season 4 either. We apologise for this but rest assured, you WILL be able to cashback your Casino winnings at a later update, and we will communicate this to you once implemented.

Now let’s talk about the Solar Pass. We’ve completely redesigned the Solar Pass to make it more rewarding, more accessible, and more exciting to complete. Previously, when you purchased the Solar Pass, you’d get the level 50 vehicle right away. While that was intentional, it didn’t create the best sense of progression or value throughout the season. So, starting Season 4, we’ve realigned the pass to be better for everyone, with three vehicles to unlock, and a more balanced structure between the free and paid tracks.

Here’s what’s new: 

• At Level 50, all players can unlock the signature vehicle of the season. 

• If you own the Solar Pass, you’ll get even more: 

  • At Level 1, instantly unlock an exclusive vehicle the moment you buy the Solar Pass.

  • At Level 15, you can grab another vehicle. (This vehicle can also be obtained instantly with the VIP Solar Pass)

  • And at Level 50, join everyone in unlocking the signature vehicle of the Season

But that’s not all—we’ve also improved the progression system based on your feedback. In Season 3, completing the Solar Pass could feel a bit too long and repetitive. So, for Season 4, we’ve made it more than 30% faster to complete, making your progression smoother and more rewarding. We are increasing the XP income from daily challenges too!

Since Season 4 introduces the first paid Solar Pass in TDUSC, we also want to inform you it will be available through our brand-new currency called Diamonds. Diamonds can be purchased in-game through various packs, and CANNOT (AND NEVER) be used to buy Solar Coins, ensuring fair progression and healthy game balance.

The Solar Pass costs 600 Diamonds, and as a special welcome offer for Season 4, our Starter Pack gives you 500 + 100 bonus Diamonds for just €4.99 / $4.99, which is just enough to unlock the pass.

This bonus offer is only available during the Season 4 period. 

You can also speed up your progression or complete your Solar Pass at the end of the season by purchasing individual Solar Pass tiers whenever you like!

If you bought the Silver or Gold Edition, you’ll be able to redeem your included bonus: 

• Silver Edition: Claim a free Solar Pass for any season 

• Gold Edition: Claim a free VIP Solar Pass with 20-level skip

Fun Fact! You can choose to use your bonus for this Season or save it for a future season!

If you have any questions, feel free to discuss with us on Discord!

We also wanted to discuss some feedback on two topics we see often on the Discord and other social media. To start, we want to let you know we do hear player concerns on being able to buy past Solar Pass vehicles, Ford GT 2006 DLC, or other items. We can’t answer this now, but we are looking for a way to allow this. We will keep you posted as usual over the next Solar Club Letters.

We also wanted to let you know we understand the frustration from players regarding sticker rewards from Live Events in TDUSC. Although this is something you will see in Season 4 and there will be a mix of stickers, liveries, and clothing (because clothing/lifestyle is a part of TDU), we are actively looking into how we can improve the rewards and perceived value of Live Events in future Seasons, and even how the events are played and the types of events possible, and we’ll communicate this to you in a future Solar Club Letter. That said, to remind you, we even have a Season in Year 2 dedicated to improving Live Events, Solar Pass, and the matchmaking in TDUSC, which as usual, you can expect more information on this in the Dev Diary.

Now, let’s talk about the next big communication we are currently editing, the Season 4 and Year 2 Developer Diary!

The Dev Diary will be releasing mid-July, before the launch of Season 4, and over the next coming weeks, you’ll see some teases on our social media. We know you’re probably wondering what will be covered in the Dev Diary, so let’s discuss that a bit.

The Dev Diary is going to be our biggest asset ever created, even at Nacon as a whole. The video will be long, and was shot using multiple Sony FX3 cameras as we discuss Season 4 and Year 2 around KT’s Paris studio. Of course, you’ll learn about each feature coming in Season 4 with interviews from many developers working at KT. You’ll then learn about each major feature coming in each Season for Year 2, but we didn’t want to stop there. In Year 2 for TDUSC, there are many things we are working on that we don’t have an exact date for, but it’s something we are working on. This will be known as the ‘important topics’ section of the Dev Diary. As you can probably guess, this means we are cooking quite a lot more than each ‘TDU-DNA’ themed Season!

Remember, we have already mentioned you can expect more contracts (also known as missions), housing, improvements on matchmaking, and of course, more Asian vehicles! Speaking of vehicles, we have at least 5 NEW licensed brands that will be teased in the Dev Diary coming in Year 2. Some of them won’t be mentioned by name, but make sure you pay attention to the video and what’s in the background! By the way, although a few are, not all of the newly licensed brands will be Asian… maybe we are bringing some previous TDU car manufacturers back too… sì, sì, sì! Outside of vehicle licensing, we also have some surprise collaborations with some brands you can expect to see in Year 2. Shoutout to our amazing licensing team!

Those of you who are into the technical improvements of TDUSC with the Season 5 improvements of the KT Engine will also be interested in the Dev Diary. You’ll meet Edouard and Fabien, as they discuss lighting improvements, time cycle, weather, shaders, shadows, and more! We will be sure to include updated gameplay and before and after shots of this too! You’ll also learn more details about our next steps after Season 5 as well.

Beyond the above mentioned, you will be able to find so much more about the future of TDUSC, but even then we couldn’t fit everything in the Dev Diary; and it's going to be more than 40 minutes long, that is for sure! Continue to look out for our monthly Solar Club Letters for more information as the Seasons go by!

Before we discuss the last part in the letter, we also want to remind you that you’ll be able to find the Developer Diary released on our Nacon Racing YouTube and Twitch. Follow them now to make sure you don’t miss it!

• Nacon Racing YouTube

• Nacon Racing Twitch

We are really excited to show you the movie we have created, and a massive shoutout to Nacon Video team for helping us create it!

As usual, we want to continue giving the community spotlight in the Solar Club Letters, and you’ll find in the Dev Diary, we have selected quite a few images shared on Discord to be added to the video! If you ever want to have an opportunity to be in the next letter or social media post, join us in the official Discord server, linked here! Now let’s showcase the two players!

Congrats to IDR1S2001 for their beautiful Koenigsegg Regera spec and LEON_JHK with their Audi E-Tron GT with a near accurate plate to replicate their name!

We are getting closer to the launch of Season 4, and following that the incredible roadmap for Year 2. A huge thank you to the community who have been with us on the games year journey so far, and we are excited to show you how far TDUSC can improve over the next few seasons. See you soon, in the Season 4 and Year 2 Developer Diary, and watch out for some teases in the coming weeks!

• The TDU Team

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We are bringing back the Solar Club Letters! We will bring these monthly and give you feedback and updates on what we are working on, not only on the development of the game, but also the communication and marketing side too, as a way to further improve our connection to the TDU community! That said, let's dive deep into the first letter!

• What’s New?
  
• Current Feedbacks
  
• Season 4 Teases
  
• Developer Diary

Season 3 launched in March and brought a much awaited change in direction to the future of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. We brought many community requested features such as solo mode for races, pause and quick restart, and bringing the first long awaited TDU style missions into TDU SC, starting with Car Delivery Missions. We then released the mid-season patch last month which added more Car Delivery missions, more Navigation Races (another new race type in Season 3), and further bug fixes and improvements. Now we are working on the next Season, the Casino! While Kylotonn is developing that and some amazing Year 2 features and vehicles, the team at Nacon are steadily planning the next big communication, the Season 4 and Year 2 Developer Diary which will answer many questions the TDU community has. Community Manager Alex VII is working on more ways to involve the community in the games future too, one of which will be announced in the Developer Diary.

We have also brought back the Community Highlight series where you’ll be able to see community photos hand selected by the team working on TDUSC to showcase on our social media. Our last one was showcased on our Social Media platforms on May 9th, but since this is our first Solar Club Letter back, let’s show our favourite player screenshots since then!



Congrats to DAVO654 for their beautiful picture in the Aston Martin Vantage on Ibiza with a beautiful sunset and BOCHEL84 for working hard and being able to purchase the prized Ferrari F40!

To have a chance at being featured in our next Solar Club Letter or Community Highlights Post, join our Discord and share your favourite shots in the #tdusc-photos channel!

A big part of improving Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is making sure we take the community’s feedback in an array of areas. Let’s take a look at a few areas we have taken into account based on your conversations on social media.

-💵Economy
We have also taken a lot of feedback regarding the games economy, especially after the nerfing of ‘Finding the Way To Can Bernat’. We can confirm that at the start of Season 4, we will not be nerfing any races, and the current 20% payout boost that is applied to Season 3 events, will not be removed in Season 4, and any new content outside of the Casino will receive a 20% payout boost. We also have heard some player complaints regarding the duration of the Solar Pass in Season 3 and based on that feedback we have made Season 4’s Solar Pass less ‘grindy’, and we are increasing the XP income from daily challenges too!

While this is a small step in improving the economy, we will have a much more vast economic improvement scheduled for Season 5 based on direct community feedback, and we will continue to listen to the feedback from players for the Seasons ahead. We’ll give you more details about this in the Dev Diary as well.

-🔊Sounds
We know sounds is something you find important in TDUSC and many have already praised the sounds we have, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to still be done. We recently had a survey asking the community for their feedback on sounds and we are currently working on some improvements directly related to that survey such as working on the Lamborghini Diablo! We will talk more about this, and other improvements in a later communication.

-🖥️Performance, Graphics and Optimisation
We are aware of some performance and optimisation issues on console and PC, and we want to remind you in Season 5 the KT Engine will be getting an update. This will include but not limited to:

• Some work on Rendering and Optimization
  
• Lighting Improvements (Shadows/Light/Reflections)
  
• Water Surfaces and Ocean Floors Improvements
  
• Shadow Management
  
• Cockpit Lighting Improvements
  
• Networking Stability

This won’t be the end of us working hard on the improvement of the games performance, graphics and optimisation either. We will continue to work to make sure all platforms provide players an enjoyable experience and you will see continued improvements of the KT Engine and TDU SC over the course of the Year 2 and beyond!

We will be able to share some before and after footage examples of some of these improvements in the Developer Diary and of course more details on the KT Engine upgrade will come as we get much closer to the release of Season 5, which will release in October.

-🚗Vehicle Distribution
Another topic which came up based on Season 3’s launch was the ranked reward vehicle. Currently, the ranked system is not optimal, and although we will have a season focused on improving the entire matchmaking experience in the game, we need to work on a solution now. That said, you will see a new vehicle distribution system taking effect in Season 4, and will continue for all Seasons after. Part of this new system means that ranked will no longer reward players with a vehicle and now the vehicles that were planned to be ranked rewards will instead be available in the dealership at the start of the season immediately. This means at the start of Season 4, you will find the following cars in the dealership day one:

• Aston Martin Valour
  
  
• Bugatti Chiron Supersport 300+
  
  
• Season 4 Vehicle
  

Can you guess that car in the picture above?

We are also reworking vehicle distribution in the Solar Pass which will add an additional car each season and we will explain this in the upcoming Developer Diary which will cover Season 4 and Year 2. You will also find a few details about that upcoming Dev Diary in this letter too! ;)

Season 4 is when we will be bringing a long awaited feature from TDU2 into TDUSC! That feature will be the Casino! Of course, we won’t only be bringing the Casino, and you can expect to find some new smaller, and larger features and quality of life improvements to TDUSC too, so let’s discuss a bit about that!

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crowns Season 4 will arrive in July. One thing you will notice is we have a larger gap between Season 3 and 4, compared to the previous Seasons. This is only temporary and you can expect 3 month seasons returning after Season 4. One of the reasons is because we are working hard on the networking of the Casino; more details on that in the Dev Diary. Another reason is because we wanted to take a more realistic approach in the game's art design. We have already started this by doing small things such as removing the lights at the top of the meeting point statues, enabling the ability to turn off holographic text, removal of parking lane text and more. That said, you can see below what we had planned for the casino, which based on the concept art has a more futuristic approach in its design.



Now, let’s show you some in-game screenshots of the Casino coming in Season 4!






As you can see, we went for a much more realistic approach in terms of design, and we think this is something TDU fans and more will enjoy! Let us know your thoughts on these screenshots on our social media channels linked at the bottom of this letter!

Side note, you may notice the name of the casino is Wintory Casino, more details on that soon! Also, can you guess the Casino car?

Furthermore, we want to mention not all of the Casino’s gameplay features will arrive day one as we continue to work hard on the Season! You will be able to find content added to the Casino throughout Season 4 arriving Day One and at the Mid-Season Patch!

Beyond the Casino you will find an array of quality of life features, improvements, and bug fixes. One of the most important ones is the TDU community asking for the ability to remove all of the HUD available in-game (rejoice those who wanted to get rid of the voice chat UI), and you will be able to do exactly this day one in Season 4, take a look at some of the no HUD in-game shots the team has taken!




We have much more to share with you in the coming weeks ahead leading up to July’s Season 4, and we are excited to continue bringing you the improvements to Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown!

Let’s talk about the next big communication we are currently planning, the Season 4 and Year 2 Developer Diary!

We discussed this very briefly in our last patch note message, but let’s give you some more details about when you will see this, and what you can expect. The Developer Diary is planned to release in July, before the start of Season 4, and we’ll give you a more specific date as we get closer to the launch of Season 4. You can expect to find all the details about Season 4’s content and improvements, as well as the roadmap for Year 2 which will feature more TDU style missions, Housing, a large improvement to matchmaking with a signature TDU feature, and a season that will dedicate involving the community in the development; which we won’t give any details on yet, we’ll save that for the Dev Diary!

We are excited to show you an in-depth behind the scenes of Season 4 and Year 2 and answer many of the questions the community has been asking us over the past few weeks and months. TDUSC is our passion project, and a franchise that many hold close to their hearts, and with that said, we assure you we will continue to work towards making this game, a TDU game to remember.




We hope you are enjoying Season 3 and please continue to send us your feedback and comments on our various social media platforms which we have linked below! We are excited to continue bringing the TDU franchise back into the hearts of many.

- The TDU Team

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Season 3’s patch is arriving this week and it will come with new content and a variety of fixes and improvements! We will also go over some important notes brought up by the community since the launch of Season 3! Let’s get started!

We will be releasing the patch on all platforms at 10:00am CET on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Along with this we will be having an estimated 4 hour maintenance which will go live at 9:30am CET. This maintenance will be to get the servers ready for the update and improve some networking as well as fixing those who are still missing their S2 ranked rewards.

1. New Car Delivery Contracts
   - Ferrari F40
   - Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe
   - Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4
   - Pininfarina Battista
   - Fenyr SuperSport
   - Mercedes-Benz 300 SL
   - Bugatti Veyron Super Sport
   - Jaguar D-Type
   - Aston Martin Vulcan
   - Lamborghini Miura SV
   - Ferrari Enzo Ferrari
   - Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+
   - Lotus Evija
   - Ferrari 250 GTO
   - AC 427
   - Ferrari FXX-K Evo
   - Ford GT40 Mk I
   - Koenigsegg Regera
   
2. New Navigation Races
   - Finding the Way to Burnside Estate
   - Finding the Way to Ap Lei Chau Park
   - Finding the Way to Heng Fa Chuen Area
   - Finding the Way to Bluff Head
   - Finding the Way to Youth Square
   - Finding the Way to Stanley Beach
   - Finding the Way to South Bay Beach
   - Finding the Way to Rocky Bank
   - Finding the Way to Fung Wah Estate
   - Finding the Way to Kennedy Town
   - Finding the Way to Cyberport
   - Finding the Way to Shau Kei Wan
   - Finding the Way to Hing Tung Estate

• Fixed freeze (diagonal line) when loading Ibiza first in some cases
  
• Fixed NPC spawning on parking areas during car delivery
  
• Updated damage on car respawn during Car Deliveries
  
• Removed hazard lights auto-trigger
  
• Fixed several general crashes
  
• Balanced navigation races rewards and time limit on Ibiza and Hong Kong Island
  
• Decreased Payout On 'Can Bernat' (see economy section of patch notes below)
  
• Updated localization
  
• Fixed new store notification displaying at each launch
  
• Fixed player level/lifestyle not displaying on the votekick popup while this player is in other session
  
• Fixed car information panel in hotel hall sometimes floating above ground
  
• Fixed incorrect "Time to beat" display in some High stake screens
  
• Fixed Car Delivery voices being "gender swapped" in Spanish
  
• Fixed flipping car during some car delivery RTC
  
• Quest "Making a Marque" now points to cross country cars instead of restricted supercars
  
• Adding Car Delivery images for each challenge
  
• Improved description UI for Car Delivery contracts
  
• Fixed photo mode in races unpausing the player later than AI opponents
  
• Fixed several vegetation hitboxes
  
• Fixed incorrect clan information in group UI
  
• Fix player vehicle being unpaused too late when leaving photo mode during race
  
• Give the correct time between 5pm and 12am on Ibiza

• Fixed an issue where the gearbox would shift several times between second and first gear when using automatic shifting
  
• Fixed upgrades of Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta
  
• Fixed Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta window animation
  
• Fixed an issue where the car would be launched into the air after hitting an obstacle at high speed or landing too abruptly
  
• Improved progressive acceleration on all cars
  
• Fixed missing Bentley Continental GT rims
  
• Balanced stopping power during friction with barriers
  
• Fixed rarity on Lamborghini Countach LPI800 parts
  
• Authorized more license plate modification for Chevrolet and Lamborghini
  
• Improved braking dynamics on Dodge Viper SRT

• Improved Ferrari California engine sound during deceleration
  
• Increased pitch of hypercars and supercars engine sounds
  
• Fixed sound reverb persisting after using fast travel
  
• Added music to car delivery introduction

• Fixed memory leak with GUI sounds

• Fixed memory leak with GUI sounds

• Better Stability and Performance

Similarly to the last patch notes, we want to continue to give you some progress and information on what we are working on for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. As usual, please understand that there are priorities given to some topics over others, and some are harder to investigate and solve than others, so no timeframe can be given currently unless otherwise specified. That said, here are all the future fixes and improvements we are working on:

• Ranked Reward Vehicle Players have mentioned that the ranked reward provides an unfair experience in TDUSC currently as it is not optimal. Though we do still have plans to improve the ranked and PvP experience in TDU SC, we also want to assure you we are moving away from a ‘competitive first’ aspect, and heading in the direction TDU is meant to be. We can confirm we have not only improved how the ranked vehicle works, but also vehicle distribution as a whole. While we will be providing more details on this in the dev diary slated before the launch of S4, we can assure you, that you do not need to complete ranked this season to obtain the Valour early in Season 4; and all players will be able to purchase the Aston Martin Valour at the launch of Season 4. We are excited to go more in depth on this in the future!
  
  
• Economy: Economy has been a big discussion in the community recently, and we are currently looking into the feedback players have been giving as well as the data we have. As we add more ways to earn money through things like missions, casino, and other things coming in Y2, we need to make sure we keep a balance, and you can progress the way you want, and earn money the way you want, regardless of the way you play. However, this is a very touchy subject, and it is not something we can fix in its entirety immediately, especially as the Casino will arrive next season as we cannot ruin the progression and make it too easy to earn money. We already have some ideas on ways to improve the balancing of not only money earned throughout all the races and missions in the game including the Crown Jewels, but also the progression of the game and the XP earned in both regular and clan reputation. We will discuss this further in the dev diary and provide more details on how we will be tackling this in future seasons releasing to make sure this topic is solved to the communities standard, and the TDU standard; which includes the topic of car selling, which we can also confirm will be seen in the future ahead of TDU SC, and we’ll focus on its delivery in the Dev Diary as well.
  
  
• Other Fixes and Improvements: We went over quite a few improvements and fixes in the last patch notes and if you haven’t seen those already, there are many fixes from that which we have solved in this patch, with more to come in the launch of Season 4. You can find the previous Patch Notes here!

We are currently working on the next big communication for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. This will be our next Dev Diary, and will include information about Season 4, our roadmap for Year 2, as well as many topics the community have wanted us to tackle such as the economy, ranked vehicle distribution, optimisation/graphics, network, missions, and more! We will provide more information on this in the coming months as we lead up to the next season of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown! We advise you to join our Discord as we will be communicating with the players more as we continue to build the future of TDU! See you soon!

- The TDU Team

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