TDU Solar Crown’s New Headline Feature Is Banned In Over 60 Countries

The Season 4 update for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown has landed today, bringing with it five new cars, an in-game casino and a host of other smaller quality-of-life improvements.

Unless, that is, you live in certain countries, in which case that new car count drops to four, and the casino is absent altogether. That’s because in over 60 nations, laws restricting gambling or its depiction in video games lock players out of the casino altogether.

They include what we have to imagine are some fairly big markets for the game. Per the patch notes on Steam, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, the UAE, Czechia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Australia are just some of the countries where the casino is restriced.

That also means that, for the time being, players in these countries have no way of accessing arguably the most anticipated of the new Season 4 cars, the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. The hardcore 720bhp version of the old AMG GT is currently only obtainable by winning it on one of the in-game slot machines. We have to imagine a patch will arrive fairly quickly to rectify this for affected players – we’ve reached out to developer KT Racing to find out if this is the plan, and will update this story if and when we hear back.

This isn’t an issue exclusive to Solar Crown, in fairness. When the Diamond Casino & Resort update arrived for Grand Theft Auto Online back in 2019, players in countries with tighter gambling laws were able to enter and walk around the casino building but not take part in any of its activities involving spending in-game currency.

It nevertheless represents another bump in the road for the troubled open-world racing title, although as we recently found out in an online press conference, KT is still committed to bringing steady improvements and new features to the game. Over the next 12 months, we can expect tweaks to the graphics engine and the long-awaited arrival of more Japanese cars and buyable houses.