Of course, this year’s new Passat would also be randomly sampled and tested by IIAS. The American version’s crash test results were already out—all excellent—and the domestic results were reportedly coming out in the next few days.

Naturally, the same car model would have different configurations in different regions. Many joint venture cars had domestic versions that were inferior to their American or European counterparts—a very common phenomenon that, when exposed, would be harshly criticized.

Things like replacing aluminum with steel had become almost unsurprising.

But many consumers were still willing to believe in the Passat, because in recent years, the Da Zhong brand had maintained a decent reputation in China. Everyone felt that even with reduced features, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as what was shown in the game.

An airbag that doesn’t catch the face—could a human really design something like that?

Supporters of the Passat and supporters of “Safe and Civilized Driving” were arguing fiercely online.

Of course, besides these arguments, there were also some other valuable posts.

For example, someone with a selfless dedication to the community had tested several entry-level car models for everyone’s reference.

Surprisingly, the best performer was a domestic electric vehicle, the HF6 SUV model. Although its starting price was over 50,000 yuan more than the Passat, its safety performance in the game was much better than the Passat.

Moreover, this HF6 had also undergone IIAS testing, and the results were indeed nearly perfect, very close to the game’s representation.

Many other joint venture cars in the same price range actually had various problems.

Of course, this result also sparked considerable controversy. Some suspected that the “Safe and Civilized Driving” development team had taken money from this domestic new energy vehicle manufacturer.

This bribery might have been rather subtle: “We’ll represent your car truthfully without exaggeration, but we’ll make all the premium cars in your class look worse, thereby making yours stand out.”

This approach also carried lower risk and was less likely to be detected.

Combined with the exaggerated portrayal of the Passat earlier, such suspicions weren’t surprising.

If “Safe and Civilized Driving” was just a difficult game, players could accept that. But if it was taking bribes to smear certain car brands, that would be a major stain on its reputation.

Zhang Yan looked through the related discussions online but didn’t participate.

After all, the facts weren’t clear yet. Many joint venture models hadn’t released their crash test results, so it wasn’t certain that “Safe and Civilized Driving” was deliberately defaming them.

What if “Safe and Civilized Driving” wasn’t collaborating with car manufacturers but with IIAS instead?

What if they had obtained internal crash data from IIAS and adjusted the game’s vehicles to match reality?

This was entirely possible. After all, if Chi Xing Studio’s “Real Estate Agent Simulator” had established a “Reality Service Department,” it wouldn’t be strange for Shangyang Games to link “Safe and Civilized Driving” with reality.

After resting, Zhang Yan returned to the game.

This time, she was smarter and chose the HF6 as her new car. She also became much more careful on the road.

After completing several more jobs, she suddenly wanted to try driving a large truck.

She’d never tried it before!

Because she had driven sedans and SUVs in real life, driving them in the game became routine after a while—there wasn’t much novelty or fun, just earning money.

But if earning money was the goal, wouldn’t long-distance passenger or freight transport be more profitable?

With this in mind, Zhang Yan again gathered her energy and began preparing for a new test.

She had initially thought that since she had already obtained a car driver’s license in the game, getting a license for large vehicles shouldn’t be too difficult.

However, once she started, she discovered it wasn’t like that at all.

It was much harder!

Buses carry passengers and are responsible for their safety, so the test items were far more difficult than for private cars. Trucks were even harder because the cab and trailer of a semi-truck aren’t a single unit but are connected, making reverse parking incredibly difficult!

Zhang Yan tried many times, but just the reverse parking alone defeated her. The trailer at the back simply wouldn’t move the way she wanted it to, and all her previous reverse parking techniques were useless!

There were even several times when the truck ended up in an embarrassing position, with the cab and trailer at a sixty-degree angle, completely stuck.

“This is too hard! How can anyone drive this?!”

Zhang Yan began to question her life choices.

After nearly an hour of attempts and complete failure, Zhang Yan angrily quit the game.

But after quitting, she quietly searched online for truck driver’s license test tutorial videos and began learning.

Although constant failure was extremely frustrating, once successful, the sense of achievement would be incomparable.

Zhang Yan felt that her skills were already quite proficient, and with a bit more effort, she should have a chance.

After calming down, she realized that compared to other racing games, “Safe and Civilized Driving” indeed provided significant help in improving driving skills.

Could other games improve driving skills? Of course they could.

But these games all seemed to have some obvious flaws.

There was no need to mention those pure adrenaline racing games that lacked realism. Even if played with a steering wheel, they would at most only practice directional control.

Some dedicated racing simulation games could improve driving skills—many professional drivers even used these games for daily training. But the biggest problem with these games was their high threshold and steep difficulty curve.

Starting directly on a racetrack, how many beginners could stay on the track, let alone pursue good times and rankings?

In some rally games, it was questionable whether beginners could even complete the course before their car was completely wrecked.

These games generally had no tutorials. Even the most basic operations like racing lines and drifting required players to search for information online and teach themselves, which was extremely unfriendly to beginners.

Some driving simulation games were equipped with very comprehensive driver assistance systems that could automatically help with braking and turning, giving players the illusion that “I’m doing well.”

But the problem was that driver assistance systems not only failed to improve driving skills but could also create dependency and incorrect driving habits.

A major advantage of “Safe and Civilized Driving” was that it used these limitations to build progressively increasing difficulty levels for players.

The process of obtaining a driver’s license was actually a tutorial for beginners.

Players might initially feel impatient and want to skip the license test step to drive directly on the road.

But what would happen if players were actually allowed to drive immediately?

They would crash wildly, damage their cars, and quickly lose interest in the game.

Because “zero accidents” was the core pleasure of this game.

This was similar to suffering games like “Looking Back Is the Shore.” If players were allowed to slash through enemies easily, they would quickly lose interest. But by increasing difficulty and forcing players to hone their skills, although many players might be discouraged at first, once they got into it, the joy from skill improvement was far greater than from easy victories!

After obtaining a driver’s license, most players would have a mysterious confidence in their driving skills, allowing them to smoothly integrate into the game.

Next came earning money, changing cars, and pursuing higher driving skills.

Currently, although Zhang Yan could already earn money by steadily running ride-shares, she clearly understood that this game had no upper limit.

Tired of ride-sharing? Then it was time to get a license for large vehicles! Driving heavy trucks to transport goods was much more challenging than ride-sharing—at least another hundred hours of gameplay.

Tired of long-distance buses and trucks? There were still circuit racing and rally racing, which had even less of an upper limit.

Moreover, the circuit and rally racing in “Safe and Civilized Driving” were different from other driving simulation games.

Other driving simulation games lacked sufficient groundwork and jumped straight into racing, which was very unfriendly to beginners.

“Safe and Civilized Driving” was different. After hundreds of hours of practice, basic driving skills became very solid. At that point, with beginner tutorials helping players familiarize themselves with racing lines, drifting, and other basic operations—practicing donuts or figure-eights on the training ground—circuit racing or rally racing became much easier.

At least players wouldn’t encounter situations where their cars were wrecked before completing the course.

Simply put, “Safe and Civilized Driving” forced a smooth difficulty curve through numerous early restrictions, greatly enhancing the gameplay experience once players truly got into it!

Especially for players with matching steering wheels, once they got into it, they wouldn’t want to stop.

Zhang Yan silently made up her mind to grind for another day tomorrow—she was determined to obtain that truck driver’s license no matter what!

…

…

January 18th, Friday.

Ye Zhizhou arrived at Rabbit Tail Live Streaming and met Hu Xianbin, whom he hadn’t seen for a long time.

The two comrades-in-arms from the first season of Suffering Journey met again, giving them a strange feeling of mutual understanding.

“The feature you wanted is complete. Don’t worry, we absolutely won’t favor one game department over the other!” Hu Xianbin was very pleased with himself.

The two went to the entertainment room, where there were two “Safe and Civilized Driving” simulators, both with the deluxe package and identical configurations.

They each sat down and fastened their seatbelts.

Then, Hu Xianbin began to drive, while Ye Zhizhou kept his hands down, not touching the steering wheel at all.

Hu Xianbin’s driving skills weren’t particularly good, so he just drove casually on the city streets.

The feature they were testing had nothing to do with driving skills: as Hu Xianbin turned the steering wheel, the steering wheel in front of Ye Zhizhou turned in exactly the same way!

Additionally, in the corner of Ye Zhizhou’s screen, there was a display showing the depth of Hu Xianbin’s accelerator and brake pedal presses, gear shifts, and other operations.