PS4-exclusive Driveclub has been considered to be the most played PS4 game, and it has about 10.5 million players. This dwarfs racing mainstays such as Need For Speed, and GT Sport has 9.46 million players and 6.6 million players respectively. This was reported by the Gamstat trophy tracking page, borne out of Sony’s My PS4 Life tool which gave more information than Sony or their partners. Driveclub being free for PS Plus subscribers between June 25 to October 6 back in 2015 was a game which had been critically-panned so that people from poor states could play it.
No sequel to Driveclub will be coming out anytime soon. The studio behind DriveClub, Evolution shut down because of Sony in 2016, and it was acquired by Sony in 2008.
A statement by Sony to GamesIndustry.biz says the shutdown and acquisition were because of a restructuring done in its European studios.
The statement read- “Regular reviews have been taking place throughout SCE Worldwide Studios, and this has ensured that the resources which we have in a competitive landscape will be able to create and produce high quality, innovative and commercially viable projects. As part of such a process, we have reviewed and assessed all current projects, and we have plans for the short and medium term, and hence, we have decided to make a few changes regarding the European studio’s structure. As a consequence of this, it has been decided that Evolution Studio will close.“
Driveclub and MotorStorm have been two of Sony’s most influential racing franchises in recent times, apart from Gran Turismo.
The developers behind these games have banded together with the aim of forming a new game studio named Wushu Studios. Some of their talents consist of studio founder Alan McDermott (former Evolution Studios, PlayStation), design director Nigel Kershaw (former Evolution Studios, PlayStation, Deep Silver, Revolution Software), and art director Stuart Trevor (former Evolution Studios, PlayStation).
Wushu Studios’ first effort will not surprisingly be a racing game. Instead, it would be a new IP set in the sci-fi genre. In a prepared statement, Studio said- “We wish to confirm that prototyping has begun in September 2017 with the help of Unreal Engine 4.“
