Driver: San Francisco may just be the best game you’ve never played. Released towards the tail-end of the PS3 era, the game featured a mechanic named Shift, which effectively enabled you to “jump” between different cars without ever getting out. This led to some interesting gameplay mechanics and possibilities, and we’ve been waiting for a sequel ever since.
However, it’s been more than a decade since the Ubisoft Reflections developed racer deployed, and there’s been very little movement in the series since. Back in 2021 it announced a partnership with Binge to create a TV show adaptation of the long-running series, but a GameFile report published last week revealed that the project had been binned.
So what next for the Driver franchise, then? Well, there is still a small nugget of hope: “We are actively working on other exciting projects related to the franchise and can’t wait to share more information in the future,” a spokesperson confirmed, as spotted by VGC. It’s unclear whether said future initiatives will include games, adaptations, or something else entirely.
Personally, we’d settle for some kind of updated port of Driver: San Francisco at this point. Considering the game is stuck on the PS3, with no backwards compatible version available on PS5 or PS4, it’d be nice to get a new version readily available on modern hardware. Considering Ubisoft recently re-released Beyond Good & Evil, we suppose it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
[source gamefile.news, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 11
ETA 2030? Ubisoft got lots of in-development games with release dates TBC. Sands of Time, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Splinter Cell remake…
Another driver game would be insane but of course they would try to be edgy, add some stupid gameplay mechanic and mess it up some way.
Driver SF man...
That game did the GTA V character switch thing before Rockstar and smoother!
On top of that, in a graphically beautiful world ín 60FPS ón PS3! Insanity!
Goes to show you what Ubisoft can achieve when they actually finish and go for quality. Probably the last Ubisoft game that did so, honestly, which makes it even more frustrating. Don't know what happened to this dev team, but if Ubisoft decides to make another Driver game I have zero expectations.
Edit: Ubisoft Reflections apparently. They've done work on various Ubi games.
They're responsible for the Grow Home games (which are far better than Jusant and seriously underappreciated). They're currently working on some open world game it seems
@Kidfunkadelic83
They always add stupid mechanics to be edgy.
hEy LoOk yOu cAn gO pAraChutiNg iN thiS sNowBoaRd gAme. Or skydiving or skiing or cycling or whatever. None of them have good gameplay.
All they care about is to show all this stuff in their marketing and to cast a big net to peak interest from as many people as possible, just to disappoint them.
This whole company has this philosophy and it's pure dogsh*t.
Sorry for the long comments
I’ll take ports of the first two games, Driver sanfran was is a great game, but it didn’t feel like a driver game.
Actually, I’d really like to see drivTHREEr and stuntman get some port treatment first because both those games are stuck on ps2 and unplayable on emulators.
@Fartingale I loved Stuntman when it came out, managing to just scrape through a level and seeing the end film trailer where your car was clearly meant to go through the billboard but you missed was unintentionally hilarious. It still has me looking out for Vic Armstrong's name in credits
San Francisco was just so damn good! I would go for a new Driver game as long as it catches the essence of that original, and bring the driver training level back too, you guys know what I’m saying 😁
I have Driver:SF on my steam deck. It still rocks and very fun to play. The best free roam driving game, if not only, that has disappeared because of music license issues. Madness when Ubisoft has remastered so much they couldn't bring this back. Reflections knew how to make car mechanics fun.
They should just remake the parking lot tutorial part from Driver on PS1 and the Car-Souls genre will be born
Why don't make a new driver like the first one without trying to be GTA you will never beat them anyway. If you look at the first driver game tell me what game is the same just focus on the awsome driving.
I am excited to see the reinvention of this franchise. Hopefully, they don't mess it up. It's really disappointing how some of their games have been handled recently. Particularly Watch Dogs and Beyond Good and Evil 2. The latter is a no-show, while the former looks like it's been scrapped and has no future. It's disappointing. I know they have all their eggs in the basket with Assassins Creed. But honestly, they need to do better there. And Splinter Cell making a comeback would be a big win for sure with players. I do like Ubisoft games, I play a lot of their games, but yeah. Just my two cents on it all.
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