In spite of DriveClub‘s disastrous launch, persistent post launch support and a respect for community led to a remarkable turnaround for the game- a year after its launch, it was routinely cited as one of the best racing games of the generation, and it managed to sell over 2 million units worldwide. In spite of that, earlier today, news broke out that developers Evolution Studios would be shut down.
However, none of this seems to be getting the developers down, who seem to be upbeat about the future of DriveClub. In a message posted on Twitter this afternoon, Evolution Studios’ senior community manager Jamie Brayshaw said that it is “the end of an incredible era for Evolution Studios. DriveClub will live on under the care of the awesome team at PlayStation and we hope it will continue to thrive in their safe hands and with continued support from all of you, the players, our community.
“Community has always been at the heart of everything we’ve worked hard for at Evo. Your endless enthusiasm, support, honesty and energy was always our biggest motivator. You all helped Evo to become one of the greatest racing game studios in the world, and we can’t thank you enough for that. You will continue to inspire us while we all take a little break and work out what we’re going to do next…
“Thank you once more, for everything. The best is yet to come.”
So it sounds like DriveClub will continue to get the kind of post launch support that has marked its existence so far- and it sounds like development of that content has been handed over to one of Sony’s internal teams.