Sony has announced that the Driveclub servers will be shutting down on March 31st, 2020, thereby removing any and all online functionality from the game. Driveclub VR and Driveclub Bikes will also be affected by the closure, the company confirmed.
Driveclub, Driveclub VR and Driveclub Bikes will remain for sale, along with all the games’ DLC and Season Pass, until August 31st, at which point Sony has confirmed that they will be removing the game from the PSN Store.
Owners of the game will still be able to play Driveclub offline, however, with the single-player portion of the game remaining unaffected by the servers being switched off. Content included in the Season Pass for the single-player mode will also still work, and players will also be able to continue to earn trophies.
Driveclub first released back in October 2014 following several delays and managed to sell more than two million copies within the first year of being on sale. It’s estimated that more than 10.5 million gamers have jumped into Driveclub altogether, and so the game could certainly be deemed as being a success for Sony. However, that didn’t stop developer Evolution Studios being shut down by Sony in 2016.
The game was seen as being Sony’s answer to the Forza series, which remains one of Microsoft’s most successful first-party titles of this generation. Now it looks like Gran Turismo Sport is PlayStation 4 owners’ only other real alternative.