Driveclub Servers Unavailable for up to Eight Hours Today [UPDATE]

[UPDATE] The Driveclub server maintenance has finished ahead of schedule.

The original story is below.

PlayStation 4 racing game Driveclub's online mode--a major draw for the title--is currently unavailable and will remain that way for a good portion of today, April 7. The downtime, which spans up to eight total hours, is the result of Evolution deploying "major updates" to the racer's servers.

This downtime, if it spans the full eight hours, will run through about 7 PM BST / 2 PM EDT / 11 AM PDT. Driveclub's offline mode can still be played during the maintenance period.

"Apologies for any inconvenience this causes and thank you for your patience while we continue working to improve the game," developer Evolution said.

Evolution has been making regular server upgrades to Driveclub since the game's troubled release in October 2014 in an effort to improve the overall experience and to prepare for the launch of the free PlayStation Plus edition. The studio said previously that, while this free version is not canceled, the developer won't release it until it's confident the servers will hold up.