JDM: Japanese Drift Master now has online multiplayer on PC, with console players still waiting their turn.

Developer Gaming Factory has pushed the online component live for the Steam version of its Japan-set drift game, adding a shared-server layer to what has until now been a single-player experience built around a story campaign and a fictionalised Gunma-inspired open world. The console editions are due to get the same update, though the studio hasn’t attached a firm date to that — the wording is “soon,” which is doing a lot of work.

Details on what the multiplayer actually entails are thin at this stage. There’s no confirmed player count per lobby, no breakdown of whether tandem drift scoring is judged automatically or left to the honour system, and no word on how the open world is partitioned between sessions. Worth waiting for hands-on impressions before drawing conclusions.

Why it matters if you’re a sim racer: JDM has never pretended to be a simulator, and its drift model sits closer to an accessible arcade handling package than to something like Assetto Corsa with a competition drift mod. But multiplayer is the whole point of drift culture — tandem runs, chase battles, judged entries. A drift game without other cars on track is a driving school. Adding online is less a feature than the missing half of the concept.

The realistic read is that this lands as a casual social sandbox rather than a competitive discipline, and that’s fine. If you already own it and bounced off the solo campaign, this is the update that changes the pitch. If you’re on PS5 or Xbox, hold that thought — “soon” is not a release window, and it’s reasonable to wait for a date before getting excited.

Originally reported by Traxion.