As a fan of racers (it is Racing Month currently, after all), the lure of two racing games brought me to watch the Nacon Connect of 7/July. The larger lure was to find out something about the next in the Test Drive Unlimited series.

There was no gameplay; it was never advertised as having such. But I found the information good, and have some confidence that not only Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, but new motorbike racing game RiMS Racing, will prove to be fun games.

Let’s start with that new game first. RiMS Racing is a motorbike simulation racer that will feature licenced bikes and real road and circuit races. There’ll be a team management section within the career, and while developer RaceWard Studio are looking to make it a true simulation, they’re also hoping to make it easier for newcomers to get invested.

I’ve not been much of a bike racer, but as you’ll have seen from my last article, I have given them a go at various points. Even on GTA V I’ll occasionally get down to some motorbike racing. So this seems like something I would look at even if I didn’t play. However, intent as I am to reconnect with some of those old PSP racers, I might just be singing a different tune come the release of this during summer next year.

Then we get to the crowning fire that is the new Test Drive Unlimited. Yes, I might not have much experience with this series either, but it’s one that I do remember, and it’s one that I’ve recently started getting into thanks to the second game.

The premise of TDU2 is of an open championship where you tackle licences to get access to new disciplines, then work your way up the ranks by competing in the championships of those disciplines to become the winner of the Solar Crown. That premise seems to be returning here, with talk of keeping things the same while modernising the concept.

Part of that is an island recreated at 1:1 scale. If you know of TDU2, you’ll know that game featured two islands. Ibiza and Oahu, Hawaii. While such wording makes it sound like we’ll only get one island to play around on this time, that island should prove to be a lot more diverse than those featured within TDU2.

The championship events of TDU2 featured the usual races and time trials, while also fitting in a few other events. These were the likes of keeping a high speed to earn points or hitting speed traps to get the highest average speed, which did offer some variation. I’m hoping we’ll see more of the varied events make a return, even if not a part of the championships.

Of the two, I think you can see I’m excited more for the return of Test Drive Unlimited, but that’s not to say KT Racing doesn’t have something else coming soon. Before the event truly started, a small snippet of WRC 9 was shown, confirming it for Smart Delivery, with a reminder that WRC 8 is currently free as part of Games With Gold.

I’ll be getting my rally on once again for WRC 8 soon enough, but there’s plenty of racing games sure to be coming over this second half of the year that it will be difficult to know where to start once they all start coming in. Once I get to it, though, I’m sure WRC 9 will be worth the wait.

Images Taken From:-
Nacon Connect 2020