The Test Drive intellectual property was acquired in December 2016 by French publisher Bigben Interactive, later rebranded as Nacon, which had purchased it from Atari with plans to reboot the franchise. In 2018, Nacon acquired French developer Kylotonn, operating under the brand KT Racing, who would serve as the developer for the new title. The game was quietly in concept stages from 2016, with full production beginning in 2018 according to game director Guillaume Guinet.
The title Solar Crown refers to the in-universe racing competition series that had appeared in Test Drive Unlimited 2, connecting the new game narratively to its predecessor. Nacon filed a trademark for the name with the UK Intellectual Property Office in April 2020, and a brief teaser was posted to the official Test Drive Twitter account on 3 July 2020. The game was officially unveiled one week later at the Nacon Connect online event.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is set on a 1:1 recreation of Hong Kong Island, a departure from the series' previous open-world locations on Oahu and Ibiza. The map offers approximately 550 kilometres of drivable roads and features left-hand traffic, the first time the series had modeled left-hand driving since titles that depicted Tokyo and London. The shift to Hong Kong gave the game a visually distinctive urban and mountain landscape compared to the resort-island aesthetic of its predecessors.
The game is designed as a persistent online experience. Unlike Test Drive Unlimited and Test Drive Unlimited 2, which allowed offline play, Solar Crown requires a constant internet connection throughout gameplay. Players compete within a structured in-game hierarchy tied to the Solar Crown competition, progressing through a social and competitive ranking system while acquiring and customizing vehicles.
Creative director Alain Jarniou, who had worked on the original two Test Drive Unlimited titles, returned to guide the direction of the project. The game was positioned as a competitor to the Forza series and The Crew series, with game director Guinet explicitly citing both as targets for comparison.
The development timeline was repeatedly extended. In May 2022, Nacon announced the release would shift from its original window to 2023, and simultaneously canceled the planned PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions to focus on ninth-generation hardware. In July 2023, the release was delayed again, moving to 2024. On 30 May 2024, a release date of 12 September 2024 was confirmed. A Nintendo Switch version had been announced early in the game's promotional cycle but was never released.
A second season update was announced on 29 August 2024, adding the Spanish island of Ibiza as a new location, available from 24 December 2024. Ibiza had appeared in Test Drive Unlimited 2 and its inclusion as post-launch content represented a direct callback to that game's setting.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown received mixed or average reviews from critics according to Metacritic. Only 6 percent of critics recommended the game according to OpenCritic. Common criticisms included lackluster gameplay, poor driving physics, and inadequate PC optimization. The always-online requirement drew particular negative attention, as neither of the game's predecessors in the Unlimited series had mandated a persistent internet connection to play. The game was seen as a missed opportunity to revive a franchise that had been dormant for over a decade.