Ossu!
Drifters, for the past few weeks you’ve been having fun in the open world multiplayer mode - cruising around, trying your hand at tandem drifting and showing off your driving skills to fellow players. In the meantime, we’ve been testing server stability, game performance and prepping for the next stage of multiplayer implementation into JDM. This day has arrived, so strap on and let’s go through all of the novelties added to the game!
Oh, one more thing before we dive into details:
If you don’t own the game yet, JDM: Japanese Drift Master just went on sale!
Get the base game now on Steam at a 60% discount!
or get the deluxe edition bundle with all the DLCs:
Multiplayer Events
We’ve added a variety of races to multiplayer, available directly from the open world, as well as the main menu of the game.
There are 15 races available in total, spread between:
Grip races - your usual ‘get to the finish line first’. Up to 8 players in the lobby.
Drift races - score more drift points than your opponents. Up to 8 players in the lobby.
1 vs. 1 Challenges - focused primarily on touge and drift touge races.
Some of the races take place in instanced parts of the open world, others at racing tracks available in the game. We want you to check all of them yourselves, but to build some expectations, here are a few examples of what to expect:
Haikama Lake Drift - a drift race around the Haikama Lake
Highway Grip - a race on highways around the entire Guntama map
Tofuna Downhill / Uphill 1 vs. 1 drift / grip races - the legendary skyline awaits the best drivers to dominate its tight, mountainous corners!
And many more!
Setting up a multiplayer race from the main menu
Just navigate to the Challenge / Multiplayer Menu block on the Main Menu screen and follow the instructions provided to set up matchmaking.
When hosting a session you will have control over the track selection, number of laps, time of day, weather conditions and whether you want car-to-car collisions disabled (Ghost Mode).
Setting up a multiplayer race from the open world
There are various Points of Interest scattered across the open world map. Driving to any of them and interacting with them will begin a voting process, unless you choose to drive alone. If so, the game will move you to a new empty room, in which you can play solo.
Voting is session-wide, meaning all players in the active session will receive an invite to join the race. Of course players will be able to reject the offer and continue playing. If they choose to participate, all willing players will then be moved to a new session and the race will begin.
After each race players will be able to vote on replaying the same track, moving to a different track or going back to the Open World.
Challenging other players to a 1 vs. 1 race
1 vs. 1 races can only be started by directly challenging other players. Drive towards your potential opponent and display their profile. You will now see an option to Challenge them by pressing the corresponding button. A map will then be displayed, showcasing all available 1 vs. 1 races. Select the desired event and send the challenge. The opponent will have the option to accept or decline.
We’ve been testing multiplayer events for the past few weeks and we had a blast! We hope to see you all in-game later today for some drifting fun!
PS1. If you haven’t had a chance to launch the open world multiplayer before, you can do it directly from your single player open world session - just open up the smartphone and navigate to the Multiplayer icon. Follow the on-screen instructions from there.
PS2. With Multiplayer Game Modes now live on Steam our next goal is to bring the full multiplayer experience to consoles. Please bear with us for a few more weeks - we’re very close to joining all JDM players together, regardless of the platform you play on!
Ayumi Side Story Campaign
Following our format of expanding the single player campaign of JDM through each boss’s backstories, we have prepared the next chapter, this time about Ayumi.
Players will receive 8 new events, narrated through manga pages and a reward after completing all of them - the Zeitaxu RFA - Ayumi’s unique car.
The Side Story Campaign is added for free for all owners of JDM and is now available on all platforms.
Update Patch Notes PC
It’s been a while since we’ve last made a big bug and requests sweep in JDM, so here are some of the most requested fixes available in today’s build for Steam, GoG and Epic Store:
New Content
Added Ayumi’s Side Mission Campaign
Added Multiplayer Events
Cars and the Garage
“Released” the spoiler part from Nissan’s 180SX body kit. You will now be able to retain the body kit and swap the spoiler to any other spoiler available for the car.
Fixed an issue with Tiger’s Civic where it could disappear from the garage after unlocking it.
Fixed an issue in the Change Car screen, where selecting different cars one after another would move the spawn point of the car around the garage.
Hideo’s garage (the first available garage in the game) is now available after completing the Main Story Campaign allowing for fast travel.
Brought back the tire pressure setting to the Car Setup.
System
Fixed a lot of potential system crash-inducing and interface-freeze issues in the game, including reported examples in the Main Menu, Settings, Garage, during Car Part swapping, using the Smartphone and during gameplay.
Fixed an issue where mirror settings would not persist after restarting the game.
Improved the layout and stability of Photo Mode in game.
Gameplay & Environment
Adjusted the Open World map making sure players will no longer collide with invisible objects or the ground surface when driving in heavily lowered cars.
Fixed the “Koguchi Valley” Landmarks quest. It should now register as completed as intended.
Fixed issues and made improvements to joining open world sessions in multiplayer, as well as the initial player spawn points
Fixed and adjusted back to road functionality in various locations, including Pira Park.
Improved the player spawn point functionality when using Ghost Mode in Multiplayer. Players' cars will not collide on spawn any longer.
Fixed the turn signal not properly displaying on the dash in cockpit view.
Improved the camera positions for Mazda Roadster.
Fixed and improved camera work during collisions.
Fixed GPS issues in events to properly display the route.
Improved automatic gear shifting and e-brakes for AWD cars when playing on Arcade Physics .
Console Update (PlayStation 5, Xbox):
The Console Update is smaller today - a lot of the improvements and fixes are being prepared to launch alongside the multiplayer update. We’re doing the final polishing touches and we should move into testing very soon. Here are the patch notes for consoles today:
New Content
Added Ayumi’s Side Mission Campaign.
System
Fixed a lot of potential system crash-inducing and interface-freeze issues in the game, including reported examples in the Main Menu, Settings, Garage, during Car Part swapping, using the Smartphone and during gameplay.
Fixed an issue where mirror settings would not persist after restarting the game.
Cars & Car Parts
Fixed an issue with Tiger’s Civic where it could disappear from the garage after unlocking it.
Fixed an issue in the Change Car screen, where selecting different cars one after another would move the spawn point of the car around the garage.
Ironvale Hauler - added the missing car parts and improved car part collisions; improved the lighting in the car interior, the speedometer and the run signs.
Mazda Roadster - fixed the offset alignment of the rear wheel axis.
Improved the placement and the collisions of the exhaust pipes in various car models, including the Insteroid and the Stallion.
Fixed various issues with the Akina car models - car reputation issues, car availability, selling the cars.
Gameplay & Environment
Fixed a game crash issue when changing the FFB settings.
Fixed GPS issues in events to properly display the route.
Improved automatic gear shifting and e-brakes for AWD cars when playing on Arcade Physics.
PlayStation 5 Exclusive Change List
Steering Wheels (PS5)
Added basic and experimental support for Fanatec steering wheels.
Localization (PS5)
Improved the Japanese localization of the game. Added other smaller adjustments to various languages in the game.
JDM is growing bigger and bigger with each passing month but this update is truly special for us! We can’t wait to see you in-game, challenging us and other players to races around Guntama and the various skylines found on the map!
We’re of course not stopping here and are hard at work at bringing even more features to the game (yes, the liveries system is still under development - we should have more news on this soon!), new cars and even more surprises!
We’ve been looking into your feedback and suggestions through the forms we recently shared on our Discord servers. Thank you to all who participated! If you missed out and still want to help shape the future of the game, talk to us directly or mingle with like-minded car enthusiasts, join our Discord community today!
Let’s Drift Together!
The Gaming Factory Team.