Nissan joins Japanese Drift Master’s list of licensed manufacturers

Good news for the donut brigade: Nissan has signed up as an official manufacturer in Japanese Drift Master, lending its iconic vehicles to the roster in Gaming Factory’s indie street racer.

Nissan joins fellow Japanese drift racing icon Mazda on JDM’s official car makers list, which means the plucky driving sim’s got quite a few legendary vehicles on its roads now.

Exactly how many Nissan motors – not to mention which models – is yet to be determined. “This is only the beginning,” the developer said. Though, the Skyline R34 has been confirmed, or at least, it’s being used in screenshots so we hope for everyone’s sakes that it is.

It’s an interesting spin – excuse the brilliant pun – on the arcade racing game, is JDM. The car handling feels not dissimilar to classic Need For Speed’s drift events and there’s a similar level of visual and performance customisation as you’d expect from NFS too.

But where Game Factory breaks out into new territory is in the open-world suburban Tokyo setting, where you can either drive between event markers on the map, or use your phone to call up NPCs and hang out with them, initiating events that way.

While the full game’s still in development and has a 2024 release date, there’s already a demo out which lets you sample the experience that JDM’s pitching. Titled Rise of the Scorpion, it puts you in the scuffed shoes of a rebellious teenager who just wants to burn through tyres all day and perfect the art of the drift instead of studying. With a few different (unlicensed) vehicles on offer and numerous events, it gives you a sense of the drift model and the event types.

We’ve played it. We liked.

We’re also expecting more manufacturers to sign up before JDM’s full version releases, so keep an eye out for further announcements.