Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown might be the year's worst game launch

We're having a banger of a year for sports games, somebody was bound to crash hard sooner or later. That was an absolutely intended racing pun. Test Drive Unlimited sounded promising as I mentioned in this preview.

But, and I bet you've heard this one before, it needs a constant online connection. Thousands of players eager to check it out early bought a $90 special edition. I'll bet you know where I'm going with this. The servers didn't work at launch, meaning folks paid an extra $20 to not play the game early.

KT Racing said in an update that the quality of most services has improved since early launch, but players are still reporting connection errors. KT Racing said players who have suffered through this launch (and I use that term extremely loosely) will receive some kind of in-game compensation.

But will anybody still be playing when this compensation arrives? Again, this is one of the best sports gaming years in recent memory. Don't even get me started on games such as Funko Fusion, and Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine. You just can't screw up this badly when there are this many excellent games to play.

I've barely had time to play my free MLB The Show 24 on the PlayStation 5, and it's incredibly well done. Why would I put it, NBA 2K25 or College Football 25 down for a game that might work right someday?

What happened? Well, that's another reason this may be the year's worst launch. Developer Kylotonn has gone on strike, citing instability, working conditions, and global mismanagement among other things. I am no game industry consultant, but it's a pretty good guess that this server instability and this strike are somehow related.

Development crunch is one of the biggest problems in the industry, and we may be seeing it hit critical mass here.