The latest update for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, Season 4, is now available across PC and console, bringing a some new cars, changes to events, quality of life changes, and a big new feature — although not everyone will get to enjoy this last item.
Listed as v1.012, Season 4 comes in as a chunky 34GB update on PlayStation 5 (and probably similar on other platforms), as it does pack quite a lot in alongside the five-ish new cars. We’ve already seen a good deal of this previewed, but now the update is available and the additional server QA testing period is done we’ve got a better idea of what we’ll be getting up to for the next three months.
Table of Contents
- Solar Crown Season 4: Wintory Casino
- Solar Crown Season 4: New Cars
- Solar Crown Season 4: Car Improvements
- Solar Crown Season 4: New Stock Restriction Races
- Solar Crown Season 4: Solar Pass Update
- Solar Crown Season 4: UI Update & "Group Ping"
- Solar Crown Season 4: Mid-Season Update
Solar Crown Season 4: Wintory Casino
A hotly anticipated feature, bringing back part of TDU history, the casino — or the Wintory Casino, to give its full, lore-filled title — is part of what’s garnished the game with its 18+ rating in many territories, including Europe-wide. More on this in a minute…
It’s actually a third new location for the game, following the initial Hong Kong Island area and the Season 2 expansion to Ibiza, but not one you can drive in. You’ll need to head to the heliport on Aberdeen Island (Ap Lei Chau) to be whisked away to the former Portuguese colony of Macau.
Once there you’ll be immediately inside the casino, with up to 31 other players in this new “social hub”. There’ll only be one game available initially — Macao Lights slots — but this offers potential jackpot prizes of 77,777 Casino Chips or the Mercedes-AMG (as favored by Stuart Wintory, the NPC from previous titles) GT Black Series. More games are coming in the mid-season update later this year.
To play the slots you’ll need to convert your Solar Coins to Casino Chips, at a rate of 2SC to 1CC. You’ll also be able to cash out at the same rate but also not until the mid-season update. However it’s worth keeping hold of the Chips you win for now, because the special clothing and car cosmetics stores in the casino only take payment in that form…
However, due to gambling regulations in different territories, players in 61 countries won’t be able to take part at all. It’s a pretty big but largely expected list, which includes some bigger gaming nations like Australia and Brazil, six of the eight highest-population countries in the world, and even some European territories like Greece, Iceland, and Portugal. China is also among them, which may — awkwardly — exclude players from Hong Kong…
That does mean that players in these nations won’t have access to the AMG Black, but KT Racing says that it is working on a solution which it will detail before Season 5.
Solar Crown Season 4: New Cars
Along with the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, as noted above, there’s a further four new vehicles, along with two that join the dealerships following their restricted availability in previous seasons.
You’ll need to play through the reworked Solar Pass to collect them all however, and two are locked into the paid tier. Reaching the maximum level, 50, will unlock the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, but a purchase is required for the level 1 and level 15 cars. They are the Porsche 911 Carrera VR Wide Body (effectively an RWB-inspired widebody mod for the existing car) and the DeLorean Alpha 5 respectively.
Aside from these, the Aston Martin DB11 Volante joins its coupe sibling in the appropriate dealerships, while two previous ranked reward cars — the Aston Martin Valour and the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ — join it.
Solar Crown Season 4: Car Improvements
There’s two core changes here, affecting the audio of some cars and a dynamic visual feature of some others.
While KT Racing highlighted the change to the sound for the Apollo Intensa Emozione, it’s also improved the similarly V12 Lamborghini Diablo VT, and — somewhat oddly — the DeLorean DMC-12. More sound changes are coming in response to community polling over priorities.
Additionally there’s now functioning active spoilers on vehicles that have them, from airbrakes to top-speed trimming and DRS. Vehicles cited with changes include the Bugatti Chiron, Ferrari 488 Pista, Ford GT, and McLaren MP4-12C, among others.
Solar Crown Season 4: New Stock Restriction Races
Following a well-received set of live events based around low Performance Rating (PR) vehicles and acknowledging the limitations of the PR system, there’s 40 new “Stock Restriction” races in the game.
These events essentially force you to use a standard vehicle, without any modifications — which, given the nature of the game to date may mean you need to buy some new Daily Drivers — head-to-head against other stock vehicle.
In total there’s 20 new races with this limitation and 20 existing ones have been converted to it, on both Hong Kong Island and Ibiza.
Solar Crown Season 4: Solar Pass Update
Although not touched on in great detail by the official patch notes, the Solar Pass has changed for Season 4 and into the form as was more-or-less originally intended: to a premium paid feature.
While there are still some (eight) free levels on the 50 Solar Pass tiers, they contain minor cosmetics and Solar Coins, save for the final level which awards the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato to all players achieving it. Otherwise the items — including the two cars noted above — are behind the paywall.
Players who bought either of the two Silver (Sharps and Streets) Editions or Gold Edition can get a free Solar Pass at any time, but it’s one-and-done so you will need to be cautious in which season you use it. Gold also has a VIP entitlement that skips 20 levels in one go.
Aside from that, the Solar Pass will cost you Diamonds, which are yet another new currency but this time it’s a full-on microtransaction. You can buy Diamonds from the various storefronts, with different packs offering different amounts:
- Starter Pack – 500 Diamonds (+100 during S4): $4.99
- Small Pack – 1050 Diamonds: $9.99
- Standard Pack – 2225 Diamonds: $19.99
- Large Pack – 3500 Diamonds: $29.99
- Premium Pack – 6500 Diamonds: $49.99
As a Solar Pass will cost you 600 Diamonds, you’ll probably spot that no one pack gives you a round number of Solar Passes — although there’s a one-season-only boost to the Starter Pack to give you 600 Diamonds. There’s also a VIP variant at 1,500 Diamonds.
It’s not clear if there’ll be other uses for Diamonds at this point, and unless there is you’ll likely be left with some in your account for all time, but KT Racing unequivocally states that you won’t be able to exchange them for Solar Coins.
Solar Crown Season 4: UI Update & “Group Ping”
A more welcome change comes by way of a variety of visual updates that also feeds into a couple of new features.
The first is a series of new filters for the world map, which could get quite busy at times — especially as you explored more and unlocked more — with all the icons all over the place. While an improvement, it doesn’t quite address the biggest problem for us, which is just how monochromatic the whole thing is.
You can, however, now create a multi-stop itinerary with your navigation system and share it with other players in your group to make a little party cruise in what KT Racing calls “Group Ping”.
Finally you can now remove all icons from your gameplay map (including the “Voice Chat” one) to give it a fully immersive look.
Solar Crown Season 4: Mid-Season Update
Once this has all sunk in and, we’d expect, about half way to October’s Season 5, KT Racing will deliver a mid-season update with some more features and functionality.
The casino will be expanded to include new slots, with the Golden Dragon machines offering up to 1,000,000 Casino Chips. It’ll also see poker make a return to TDU, with three different rooms at different buy-ins available.
That should, as noted earlier, also come with the ability to cash out your chips at the rate of 1 Chip to 2 Solar Coins, for spending elsewhere on the maps.
Other bug fixes should also be on the way too, with more details to come at the time, before Year 2 gets underway in October. Judging by the Solar Pass countdown, that should be on or about October 22, but we’ll update that when we have more information..
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