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This update brings 6 new "Scotland - Old Town" tracks to the game for free, along with Hardcore handling, new Elite, Driver & Club Levels & many more improvements based on your feedback.

The update also prepares the game for the addition of the "No Limits" and "Suzuki" Expansions, coming to PlayStation Store on Feb 23rd.

FULL DETAILS OF THIS MONTH’S GAME UPDATE (1.26):

» The newest track “Scotland – Old Town” is here, offering 6 track variants to play across all DRIVECLUB & DRIVECLUB BIKES game modes.
» A new “Hardcore Handling” option is now available, turning off traction control, stability control & other assists. Enable this in Gameplay Settings for a more realistic driving experience.
» Multiplayer Private lobbies have a new 'Photo mode' setting to help you choreograph photos and videos with friends. This disables ghosting, wrong way timers and automated reset to track scenarios.
» Photo mode screen filters can now be enabled outside of photo mode, while you race.
» Photo mode now offers extended Zoom and Exposure settings, plus all settings persist between photo captures during an event.
» Replays have a new option to toggle player tags on and off at any time during the replay when you use the L1 Button.» The Dynamic Precipitation option has been improved to reduce the likelihood of persistent rain.
» 10 new Elite Levels have been added (new cap is 35).
» 10 new Driver Levels have been added (new cap is 95) with new livery rewards to unlock along the way.
» 25 new Club Levels have been added (new cap is 85) with new livery rewards to unlock along the way.
» The loading screen for DRIVECLUB and DRIVECLUB BIKES now show off 2 awesome new #PS4share community photos.
» Fixed the 'Weekend Warrior' Trophy for DRIVECLUB BIKES. Ranking up the KTM 1290 Super Duke R to Bike Level 15 is now no longer a requirement.
» Includes general improvements for game performance, stability and usability.

FEBRUARY STORE UPDATE (ADD-ONS COMING TO PLAYSTATION®STORE ON FEBRUARY 23RD WORLDWIDE):

» “No Limits” Expansion Pack featuring 6 events, 5 Trophies and 2 new cars: Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 V-Spec II & Honda Civic Type-R.» “Suzuki” Expansion Pack featuring 6 events, 5 Trophies and 2 new Bikes: Suzuki GSX-R1000 & Suzuki GSX-S1000 ABS.

DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION:

The update will be available from Feb 11th. Update size is 0.9GB bringing the total size of all updates combined so far to 13GB.

Have people on this site got very specific tastes?

Looking forward to it already

I'm ready ! That's fantastic !

Yay! What, now I have to wait until tomorrow. Booh, for posting a day early :p

So are these expansions still included in the season pass, or is there a new season pass, or standalone pricing?

Evolution are still undecided on whether there will be another season pass. For now it's just a standalone price.

Very nice screenshots, but the old town city tracks are pretty underwhelming, both in layouts and in overall looks. The strength of DriveClub is the draw distance and the excitement of racing on narrow roads. Draw distance is broken up due to the high wall of buildings while the 'city' streets are all 6 lanes wide, pretending to be 2 lanes. The 3 layouts hardly differ from each other, don't flow very well and are lined with unyielding walls. These are easily the weakest tracks of all, as if they were made by a different team. GT5 city tracks are much much better than this.

Yeah, I've got to be honest and agree. In other news though, people are going bananas over the ability to remove assists. They say it turns it into a completely different racer.

I have spend some time with hardcore mode now and it definitely changes the game, however it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Unlike turning assists off in GT5 which allows you to go faster if you can handle it, DriveClub severly restricts your overall speed. You lose a lot of traction and braking is more realistic, which means lower max speed in corners and much longer braking distances. I've done a lot of hardcore driving in Hyper mode and at some points you have to start braking way before the corner flags even become visible. You have to relearn all braking points and brake for more corners than you were used to. You also have to be a bit more careful with accelerating yet that's minor compared to the huge impact the new braking distances have.

The changes make it a lot more realistic, but it also slows the general pace down, removing a bit of that omg I'm going too fast sensation. Which also means that leaderboard times are all useless in hardcore mode (no separate leaderboards yet) and timed sub challenges can't be met most of the time. (Luckily AI cars are scaled down in hardcore mode) I did the Hennesy Venom hot lap from the original tour, easy in normal mode by now. This time I was still 3 seconds below bronze in hardcore mode. You have to brake a lot for the first corner and practically crawl through the hairpin. Realistic, yet incompatible with all the tour races. The same goes for the special time trial levels. I had to switch back to normal mode to gain 10 seconds on my lap time and complete the trial. It would have been nice if those special levels were restricted to hardcore handling with correct times. Maybe for the next set.

Another change is the penalty for hitting walls is back to it's original setting. You really want to brake early, because hitting the wall will kill your speed and take your acceleration away for 5 seconds as when the game first came out. However you can use an AI car as bumper and still get away with murder. The tiny collision penalty isn't even a hindrance with the lower max speed in corners.

In spite of all that, I like it. I does feel like a different game, albeit a game without content made for it. Driving the Hennessy Venom in heavy rain on Sinclair pass is a real work out now. Still not as slippery as driving in heavy rain in Project cars, yet pretty close.