What we're left with is a flimsy framework - a sort of clothes horse for content - rather than a truly great racing game. DriveClub is patently intended to attract a global, interconnected audience of fiercely competitive racers but, to quote the increasingly obscure 1989 Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams: if you build it, they will come. And, unfortunately, Evolution hasn't quite built it.
It's a game that requires and occasionally enforces patience, but like all great road trips it's about the journey, not the destination.
A new and likeable story mode caps a decent if not dazzling celebration of 25 years of Codies' racing series.
A jaw-droppingly beautiful sim with an obsessive attention to detail that ensures the franchise's penchant for charming eccentricity is alive and well