While Forza Horizon has taken over the title of “Top Realistic-ish Open World Racing Title”, many racers can look back and fondly remember Atari and Eden Games’ Test Drive Unlimited series. With the last TDU releasing in 2011, and the last Test Drive title being 2012’s Ferrari Racing Legends, many regarded the series as dead. Well, it has been resurrected, with BigBen Games announcing that they have acquired the rights for the franchise from Atari!

While there is no confirmation that TDU 3 is in development, it is strongly implied from comments from Alain Franc, CEO of BigBen Interactive:

“We are more than confident with respect to the quality of this franchise, which is loved by so many players. Our teams are very enthusiastic at the idea of being able to work on this license, which has already proven its worth – the game Test Drive Unlimited 2 sold 1.8 million units..”

I still have my own copy of Test Drive Unlimited in my room, and I got quite a few fun hours out of it. I ended up skipping TDU 2, but I had always heard good things about it. I’m looking forward to seeing what BigBen could do with the storied series. BigBen does have a pedigree of developing racing video games, such as WRC 6, so I’m at least confident that they could do the series justice, by making a decent racing game.

In addition, here’s another question: Could we see Test Drive return to their roots? Test Drive has seen a wide variety of style changes over the years, so maybe we’ll see BigBen experimenting with the series. Time will tell, but I’m excited to see this classic series return!

What are your thoughts on BigBen taking over Test Drive? Do you think we’ll see TDU 3 in the near future? Let us know in the comments!