By Zaid at Monday, May 12, 2014 7:48:00 AM

The PlayStation 4 multiplayer racer, Driveclub , will have microtransactions, but developer Evolution Studios insists the game is not pay-to-win.





'Best Price, Guarenteed'

The game's director Paul Rustchynsky explained that the inclusion of microtransactions in Driveclub would be for instant car unlocks only and not the purchasing of in-game currency.





"[Microtransactions have] been a hot topic of late inside gaming, and we've been very keen to take on board the feedback from gamers and make sure we don't upset anyone," Rustchynsky said in an interview with "So, in Driveclub, what we've done is make sure that the progression system is really straightforward, really simple and gives you access to a lot of content really quickly. Rustchynsky said in an interview with IGN





"In Driveclub you earn Fame, and as you earn Fame, you level up. Every time you level up, we give you another car. There's no double gating or anything along those lines, you're given the car straight away without having to do anything else. The only thing we do have is a couple of shortcuts.





"If you want to unlock a car immediately, you can pay to unlock that car straight away but it's not a consumable microtransaction. We don't let people buy Fame, for example and spend lots and lots. The idea is if you want to shortcut things you can do – it's identical to what we did in Motorstorm RC. So if you played that, you know what we're doing here."





While that all sounds benign enough, it does run counter to statements Rustchynsky's made in April where he said that Driveclub would be free of microtransactions completely. During a twitter exchange where Rustchynsky was highly critical of microtransactions, going so far as to call them a 'monstrosity', he answered a question about their inclusion in Driveclub by saying they would 'absolutely' not be in the game.

Clubs and Challenges

Two new trailers for Driveclub have also been released explaining the game's Club and Challenge features. The first video explains the Club feature, which is a pretty straightforward concept. Clubs are effectively clans, where teams of players work together in races against other players. The difference is that, you don't always have to be racing in the same event to contribute to your clubs success. The accolades of every club member is pooled together to build the club's fame.









The second video details exactly how players will earn those accolades for their clubs. Accolades are earned by completing Face-offs and Challenges. Rather than just making a dash to be the first across the finish line, each section of track in a Driveclub race has its own goal, called a Face-off.

Driveclub records the performance data of all your actions, and that of your competition. When you perform better on a section of the course than the other racers you'll earn fame for yourself and your club. You're also able to issue Challenges to other racers, daring them to better your performance on certain tracks, in certain cars and even under certain conditions.

It's actually a pretty smart system, because it means that every member in club can contribute in someway or another. Don't have the fastest car, but can drift like champion? You can use that to issue Challenges and boost you clubs reputation. Ultimately, Driveclub looks like an innovative take on a very familiar genre.

Driveclub launches in October exclusively on PlayStation 4. You can pre-order Driveclub from Kalahari.com here.

Source: IGN

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