"No more delays" for Driveclub

Evolution Studios' art director Alex Perkins talks to us about the decision to delay Driveclub, the social experience, what improvements they've made over the last 12 months and more.

The interview started out with the reason for the delay that saw Driveclub slip from the PS4 launch all the way back to this October. But even if the social experience (not being smooth enough) was the reason other areas have also benefited from the delay.

"Certainly from the art side we spent a lot of time working on the image quality. The programmers have helped, given us entire new systems for reflections, depth of field, the whole lighting has been upgraded, the whole cloud system has gone even higher resolution. We're really concentrating on all the details, whether it's the sky all the way down to the tarmac, all the way down to how the vehicles look and feel and interact with all the landscapes."

Seeing as Driveclub is a new IP with social connectivity as its main differentiating feature - the PS Plus edition is a good fit that will ensure a lot of players on the servers from day one.

"We hope that people will download the PlayStation Plus [edition] really enjoy the gameplay experience and the actual connectivity of Driveclub. And then realise the stunning beauty and the brilliance of the cars can only be expanded by buying the whole game. It gives a nice solid format for people to start interacting with and actually using the challenge system and doing the connectivity. So it should give people a really give intro to how Driveclub is and hopefully spur them on to start challenging, competing from the extra locations and cars they get when they purchase the whole game."

Surely, there will be no more delays?

"No. No. We're improving the game past launch. But there is no more delays, we're hitting the deadline. And it's going to be beautiful."