Free Demo for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown Is Now Available via Steam until June 17

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By Peter Brosdahl

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Image: KT Racing

A free demo for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is now available on Steam ahead of its official launch on September 12. The free demo for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is being offered as part of Steam’s Next Fest event featuring hundreds of demos and developer live streams which runs from June 10 – 17. Test Drives fans are getting an earlier sneak peek of the game as its demo went live yesterday but will cease being available when Next Fest ends.

Image: KT Racing/Valve

Per KT Racing (via Steam):

Steam Next Fest Free Demo

“We know how eager some of you are to take your first spins on Hong Kong Island. This project, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, which means so much to our teams, has never been closer to its final release, scheduled for September 12, 2024, on Steam and consoles.

Starting today, we are participating in the Steam Next Fest 2024 to give you a preview of the Solar Crown experience. You can learn more about Steam Next Fest by clicking here.

This demo marks a further stage in the development team’s large-scale technical testing process. The aim is to test the stability of the game servers, gather key information and gather player feedback, with a view to the game’s launch.”

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown has been in development since 2020 and has taken on the monumental task of recreating the island of Hong Kong in a 1:1 scale. Players will start out at a grand hotel as their base with a garage to store their vehicles as they compete against teams and other tasks to accumulate more in the open-world racing sim. While the demo has limited content available, albeit still a good portion of the game, it does offer unlimited playtime.

Images: KT Racing/Valve

Demo Details (via Nacon):

What content will be available during TDUSC Demo?

    TDUSC Demo will feature 16 cars from the Daily Driver and Cross Country as well as a selection of 22 Supercars available for Test Drive in the car dealers. Five districts in the South of the Island will remain closed and progression will be limited to Level 15. The Solar Hotel and Clans HeadQuarters will be open as well as 7 car dealers. A total of 27 races will already be available in all kinds of type, together with 25 secondary missions.

    What is the Solar Hotel?

      The Solar Hotel is the main competition area and also where the players live, like their own HQ. Built by the organisers of the Solar Crown, this enormous tower houses a huge luxury hotel complex. Visible from much of the island, its interior design is a perfect blend of technology and the finest materials. The Solar Hotel was designed to be a flagship building for the ultra-high-end market and one that meets the lofty expectations of its wealthiest clients. Note: access to the most luxurious suites is reserved for the most prestigious clients. These guests can enjoy the Solar Hotel’s exclusive services.

      What is the Sharps Clan?

        The Sharps consider themselves an elite class and are characterized by a distinct love of sophistication and classic luxury. As traditionalists, they scorn the extravagance of the Streets and their perceived lack of maturity. The Sharps represent this “high society” in an elegant and contemporary style.

        What is the Streets Clan?

          The Streets do not want to blend in with the crowd and are certainly not shy about proving it. For them, success is synonymous with making an impression and going against the grain. Provocative and sometimes extremely so, they mock the Sharps’ traditional and conservative ways. The Streets are driven by a much more underground and extravagant street culture.

          Demo PC Requirements (via Steam):

          PC requirements start out with fairly moderate requirements for 1080p gameplay but those wanting the best experience at 4K may need an NVIDIA RTX 4090. The demo install size is 50 GB and DirectX 12 is required. System memory requirements begin at 12 GB for 1080p but go up to 32 GB for 4K.

          Recommended – Medium for 1080p @ 60 FPS

          • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10
          • PROCESSOR: Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 5800x
          • MEMORY: 12 GB RAM
          • GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, 8GB or AMD Radeon RX 6700, 10GB
          • NETWORK: High-speed Internet connection
          • DirectX: 12
          • Disk space: 50 GB

          High – 1440p @ 60 FPS

          • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10
          • PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-12600K or AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
          • MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
          • GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, 12GB or AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, 16GB
          • NETWORK: High-speed Internet connection
          • DirectX: 12
          • Disk space: 50 GB

          Ultra – 2160p @ 60 FPS

          • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10
          • PROCESSOR: Intel Core i9-14900K or AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
          • MEMORY: 32 GB RAM
          • GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, 24 GB
          • NETWORK: High-speed Internet connection
          • DirectX: 12
          • Disk space: 50 GB
          Image: KT Racing

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          Discussion (6 replies)

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          Grimlakin
          Grimlakin 👍 1

          And is kind of trash not even going to lie. In tried the demo cars. They drive like the old time cars you can kind of steer at theme parks. No thanks. And the graphics are patently from the 90s. Just no. And I was wanting to enjoy this one.

          Peter_Brosdahl
          Peter_Brosdahl

          I watched the trailer for this after posting since I literaly had about a minute or two before I had to leave the house and yeah, it looked pretty bad. A shame because I too wanted to like. Fairly certain this is DOA and again a shame because it had potential to be something really cool. After watching that trailer I'm not even going to bother downloading this. In regards to checking something new out for free, I feel my time will be better spent with Midnight Suns.

          Niner51
          Niner51

          Wanted me to create an account. Uninstalled right after that

          Peter_Brosdahl
          Peter_Brosdahl 👍 2

          Didn't know about the account thing. No on multiple fronts now. Wow, what a turd this thing has turned out to be.

          Grimlakin
          Grimlakin 👍 1

          Now the Demo clearly states it's early days... but wow... I wouldn't have released the demo in this state. It feels more like an early alpha.

          MadMummy76
          MadMummy76 👍 1

          "Niner51, post: 86070, member: 106" wrote:

          Wanted me to create an account. Uninstalled right after that


          I entered one of my throw away emails and it didn't even send an email to it. But it lets me play the game anyway. It never asked me to log in after that, I never set a password. Strange.

          As for the game, no way this is ready for a September launch. There are too many bugs and functions not working.

          The Bad:

          1. The controls menu is non functional, as soon as you navigate away from it, it reverts back to defaults. Despite of this it detects the steering wheel and it even functions in game as an input method, you are just stuck with the default settings.
          2. The free roam traffic appears out of nowhere and disappears in front of you, and there seems to be no more than two types of traffic car. No police either as far as I could tell so far.
          3. The graphics of interiors are definitely early 2010s at best. The cars look good enough to me, the environment is a mixed bag, depending on the TOD and weather it can look awful to pretty good (I've tried to take screenshots but steam's default screen capture didn't work)
          4. Your avatar looks like an androgynous blob. And customization (which only unlocks later) is only for the face (not that it helps that much either, you can barely make your avatar look human, let alone good looking). The female body shape is definitely DEI influenced, looks more trans than woman. And OFC it is not called female, just model 1,2,3,4, etc)
          5. The matchmaking is non functional, it forces you to wait 1 minute for other players, but in the end you race against AI even in the first race which is supposed to be crawling with players given that it's free for all. I Think I've seen two other players in the entire world in an hour. Of course I'd rather the Multiplayer could be turned off completely and play offline but I guess that's too much to hope for.
          6. I always thought setting the game in a left hand drive country is a huge blunder, and I stick to that assassment. Most of the world drives on the right side, this is confusing, and annoying, and I don't want to get used to it. Especially given that the car models you drive in game have the steering wheel on the left.

          The good:

          1. They seem to have the right idea about what the game should be. I can see this being good if a few issues are fixed, starting with the non functional controls menu and the awful avatars.
          2. You can play with a steering wheel without any hardship, this already makes it better than any NFS or Forza game that came out in the last two decades.
          3. The physics have a good foundation, the car handles predictably, it is clear that there is a good physics model running here that has been dumbed down to accommodate casuals instead of crap pretending to be real physics a'la The Crew or FM.

          Conclusion:

          It has potential but I'm not holding out hope that it will materialize as anything good, it will release unfinished, unpolished and go down as a giant flop, which will prevent any similar game from getting greenlit anywhere for at least 10 years. When the issue won't be the concept, but the execution.

          Peter Brosdahl
          As a child of the 70’s I was part of the many who became enthralled by the video arcade invasion of the 1980’s. Saving money from various odd jobs I purchased my first computer from a friend of my dad, a used Atari 400, around 1982. Eventually it would end up being a lifelong passion of upgrading and modifying equipment that, of course, led into a career in IT support.

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