Driveclub PS Plus Edition Delayed "Until Further Notice"

If you've been curious about Driveclub and wondering when Sony would release its long-promised PS Plus edition, keep wondering. The company has delayed the expanded demo version "until further notice."

Driveclub has experienced profound online issues since its launch, issues that continue to plague users who paid full-price for Driveclub earlier this month.

The server issues prompted developer Evolution Studios to release several statements promising things would be better soon, but several weeks after release, Driveclub's hardly a paradise for players.

Sony's head of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida, published an apology on Facebook:

"Hi everyone,

I wanted to provide you with the latest update on DRIVECLUB. Unfortunately, the road to launch has been a little rocky, and we are truly sorry that so many of you have not been able to enjoy everything that we had hoped DRIVECLUB would deliver.

We have been listening to your feedback and realize that patience understandably is running out. Evo is working around the clock to close the gap, and we have deployed additional engineering resources to help resolve the remaining issues as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the time frames required to roll out the fully connected experience will be longer than anticipated and we do not have an exact time frame for when they will be resolved. We will continue to update you on progress and you can find the latest info on the DRIVECLUB Facebook page.

We are also very conscious that we have disappointed so many of you who were looking forward to playing the promised PS Plus Edition. Our first priority is to provide you with the best possible experience while playing DRIVECLUB. With the high volume of new players and additional server load the PS Plus Edition is anticipated to bring, we are currently not confident that we can guarantee the best online experience. Until we can ensure that everyone can enjoy the full social connected online experience, we will be postponing the release of the PS Plus Edition until further notice.

On behalf of WWS we are enormously grateful for your patience and we thank you for the continued support and encouragement. Again, we sincerely apologize for the delay. We are committed to giving you the best racing experience on PS4 – it’s taking a little longer than we hoped.

Thanks,

Shu"

Driveclub PS Plus Edition is a stripped down version of Driveclub with access to India, 11 tracks, 10 cars, and every game mode. Users get a discount on Driveclub if they decide to upgrade to the full version.

Driveclub is gunning for Destiny's spot as Most Disappointing Game of the Year at all costs.

Some people who have bought the game are still unable to participate in online matches after 3 weeks of the game being released.

This whole thing is such an embarrassing mess. :( This was supposed to be a launch title.

This is what I want and honestly feel I deserve: A refund. I pre-ordered this game digitally, and paid $50. So far I've played it about three hours total. It doesn't even come close to what it promised. People on Driveclub's Facebook page are screaming for a free season pass, but why? Adding more content isn't going to fix the problems that exist. I don't want more of a game I don't like. I don't plan on playing this game again. It's there on my hard drive until someday I need the space and delete it.

I learned a lesson about preordering digital games I'm not 100% sure of: Don't do it. And I never will again.

We're getting Binding of Isaac: Rebirth for free on ps plus next month. So I don't really care and neither should you!

@corevi: I don't think there was enough hype for it to disappoint over.

Honestly, it's a little bit embarrassing at this point, isn't it. I mean the game has been out long enough now that anyone who was going to wait for the free version has seen that it is not an exemplary game even after excusing the technical issues and probably are not going to buy it at all. Shame.

@corevi: I'm going to be curious what games end up coming up in most disappointing discussion. Destiny, maybe Evil Within with Patrick's Review, possibly this (though as some point at a lot of people were eh on this one to begin with...)

Well, guess that's the final nail in the coffin of my interest in #DRIVECLUB. It's too bad, too, because I was genuinely kinda interested in this game at one point.

Oh well. If they do ever put out the free version, I might still give it a shot. Maybe, I dunno.

This makes me feel like @jeff should have given it 1 star. Or no stars. Can you give no stars on giantbomb?

This is never going to come out. They thought this game would come out of the gates triumphantly and be their big holiday hit that sold systems the way Gran Turismo used to. Then, it hit, and the servers collapsed and people realized the game wasn't very good compared to other racing games out right now or coming up. If they really had a true interest in releasing this for PS Plus that didn't depend on the game's success, they would have launched it day one. This whole thing screams "We don't want to". Why release a free version? To get people to buy the full copy at the discounted price. When the reviews and day one impressions all revealed it to be a mess and not very good, they said "meh, forget it then".

Sony just needs to take this holiday season and realize that they screwed it, and focus on knocking 2015 out of the park.

This game is a disaster on all levels it's astounding.

Evolution Studios failed to have it ready for the PS4 launch in November 2013. Will we remember Evolution Studios in November 2015?

They used simulations to see how much of a load clients would put on their server-code and when rolled out for real it immediately came clear it was completely misguiding, within an hour. The blame lies with Evolution Studios, but I would like to give 0.01% blame to Sony for not forcing them to push out a 99% offline version.

Yeah, sorry... As hyped as I was, over a year after it was promised to come out and still it's a broken mess. I probably won't be playing this, even when the PS+ version finally comes out in 2017.

@fleet_of_foot: harsh lesson to learn but i don't know if it warrants you a refund unfortunately. caveat emptor.

@spraynardtatum no, they discussed in a recent Bombin'' in the AM that Alex wanted to give the Blackwater game a 0 star review but at the end of the day it was a functional video game so it received 1 star. Drive Club appears playable offline so I think 1 star is the least they would give it.

As for this PS+ edition, at this point they have to just give people the full game and hope for the best next time, right?

True, although at this point it could be in the running for Most Disappointments--it just seems to be one thing after another.

@fifichiapet: maybe a bumpiest launch category?

@nodima: If they do that they'd have to refund anyone who bought the full version of the game or there'd be even more anger. This is a total mess, I don't understand how it's happened and how it's taking so long to fix it.

This is kind of sad. I feel more so for those who spent money on this game, and have yet been able to experience it as intended. This is one of those times where I think a refund is in order.

Is the full game still experience issues? Perhaps they don't want to release another version, which will certainly add a ton more players onto the service, and overload the servers?

This is a pretty big promise to whiff on.

Studio Liverpool and Wipeout are dead, and yet Evolution and this piece of shit limp on. What an embarrassment.

#4theplayers

Yeah, I feel like they need to take one on the chin when something like this happens. It's been 3 weeks of almost complete silence and it doesn't sound like they're making good headway on whatever is wrong. The problem with giving the full game with a plus subscription though is now you are further offending your paying customers that are already upset about lack of online play...They get all the DLC free. Boom. Hire me Sony/Evolution Studios.

Off my radar at this point. The PS+ version was their chance to wow me on a new, unproven IP and they failed miserably.

Driveclub and The Evil Within have both had a fair share technical problems/limitations despite great promise, and they make Destiny look better than it should because the game works (at least at a superficial level).

Revealing the game as early as they did and touting it as a PS4 launch game was a huge misstep. When you look at the final outcome, why did they release the game in its current form at all? The weather system is not even implemented and the servers don't work.

I get wanting to recoup some of your investment... but man, this makes it look like "the good old bad days" of Sony, making terrible decisions left and right. People are going to remember, and talk about, this game's launch for years.

Pretty sure Alex explicitly stated he gave Blackwater 1 star because the review system wouldn't allow him to choose a 0 star rating. A game shouldn't get any praise for simply being functional. That's like giving a movie a pass because it has actors and was shot on film and has sound.

Word. So now I extra don't care about this. Would have been a nice thing to fiddle with but with Dragon Age coming in Hot and Heavy in a few weeks and Final Fantasy XIV just being updated with tons of new content there is beyond zero reason for me to care about DriveClub at this point.

lol

Sounds like greatness still awaits...
; )

This and most of the problems Sony's had recently haven't affected me besides not getting to see the ps-plus edition which is a bummer, but people need to really harass the crap out of Sony, they've had too many problems at once. I want them to really feel that this doesn't fly before they screw up another launch.

Ubisoft is probably pretty happy about this. The Xbox One got Forza Horizon, but everyone else either screwed up or had to delay their racer till 2015. So only The Crew left now. I hope it turns out to be good, the beta looked promising.

Give it a year or two.

What a shambles!

Still though, I can't imagine being in the shoes of developers at Evolution Studios. This must be an extremely stressful time for them.

Still a feat that someone can get together enough equipment and people to film a thing! Even it is a truly terrible thing...

I'm in the minority (?) of people who actually enjoy the racing on offer with DriveClub. It's a real shame that the online is totally broken and that this may not have always-on DRM but every bit of the game is designed to work better with a stable server connection and we're still nowhere near that. I've not once seen what is in the main menu Challenge section, because the servers have never enabled that functionality. Dynamic challenges are temperamental; online often doesn't work; lobbies don't work; leaderboards time out more often than the populate with data (and it seems like a lot of people, even when they're connected to the servers, aren't having their times saved); and if you pick a car unlocked by club progress (so only a few of them but they're fun choices) and lose connection to the servers then it kicks you out to the main menu.

The launch of this thing has been one incredible train wreck. Not being able to guarantee your paying customers the multiplayer portions of your multiplayer-focused driving game several weeks after release is a damn disaster.

What a disaster.

Yeah you can get crappy "edgy" meme game instead of crappy driving game, everybody wins

Hottest mess 2014, anyone?

@corevi: Really? No one expected this to be good from the get-go from my impression.

Playstation Plus subscribers should get another free game from the store to make up for this.

@porjos: Except I didn't see commercials on major TV networks for Driveclub and The Evil Within two full months before release. Destiny was pounding out marketing babble for several months before release on mainstream media outlets.

LOL fuck this game.

Driveclub just stop.

The level of disaster this game continues to be is astounding.

So you're one of THOSE people. I'll just say that you are completely wrong and I know for a fact you haven't actually played the game enough to form a reasonable opinion about it. Good for you, I guess.