The Season 2 update for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is now available, adding a whole new and nostalgic map area for players to explore.
Ibiza returns to the series in the new, free expansion, adding the city of Eivissa — the local, Catalan name for the settlement which is also, in English, called “Ibiza” — and some of its surroundings. There’s brand new races, events, and challenges available, as well as some vehicles unique to the island’s dealers.
You’ll need to have advanced a little in the game already to be able to access Ibiza island, which you can do so from a special heliport on the northern part of Hong Kong Island — much like accessing Ap Lei Chau (Aberdeen Island) in the initial stages of the game. This unlocks once you have reached reputation level 12 and joined one of the two clans.
Ibiza includes more races and challenges of course, but also features a new organizing body called “Selene”, headed up by a returning TDU character. This mysterious group arranges the races on Ibiza — with barriers and without traffic, unlike the Solar Crown events on Hong Kong Island — and has its own social hub and unique vehicles.
The dealership features two brand new cars — the Ferrari California from TDU2 and the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Xago Edition — and five specially tuned “Selene Edition” vehicles. These are based on existing cars in the game, but feature performance and aesthetic tweaks. You can pick up Selene Editions of the Abarth 500, Alfa Romeo 4C, Alpine A110, Chevrolet Corvette C1, and W Motors Fenyr.
Gold Edition players also get their “compensation” for the disastrous launch of the game, having missed out on the preorder bonus of early access. This will see them receive some special stickers and the Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe “Adventurer Edition”. We’ve still not heard if affected Silver Sharps/Streets Edition players will receive anything.
A new season means a new Solar Pass too. All players will have access to this 25-level pass and reaching the top will award you the Lamborghini Diablo VT. Other levels will award Solar Coins, emotes, clothes, paints, and wheel rims.
There’s also a new Solar Crown competition, with players who are able to rank up to Solar King/Queen before the — now-delayed — Season 3 becomes active earning themselves a Bugatti Chiron SuperSport 300+.
This update will also bring a number of tweaks, primarily to the AI. KT Racing has acknowledge several issues with the AI’s difficulty and behaviour, noting that they will no longer be able to “cheat” and will be subject to the same rules and physics as the player — something we noted as amiss in our launch review — and should be easier to beat at higher difficulty levels. More development on this front is on the way.
There’s also changes to the cockpit view angles and wheel angle animation, as well as improvements to the voice chat — adding a proximity voice chat too. Voice chat will be available in free roam on both islands. One thing not mentioned though is graphics optimization, which remains a mixed bag especially on PlayStation.
The update has been deployed already, and comes in at around 35-40GB depending on your platform and console. At time of writing the game is unavailable due to the server maintenance required, but KT estimates it should return “late afternoon UTC”.
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