For a sequence as storied as Star Wars – one brimming with extra spacecraft and speeders than George Lucas has beard bristles – it borders on baffling that developer Fuse Video games’ Star Wars: Galactic Racer can arrive in 2026 as the primary new recreation of its variety in over 20 years. I blame Tremendous Bombad Racing, if solely as a result of Gungan isn’t an actual language and utilizing a portmanteau of bomb and unhealthy within the title was in all probability by no means the right pathway to gross sales success. Galactic Racer, alternatively, has a variety of impressively customisable car lessons that expands the hangar properly past traditional podracers, beautiful course design, and an impressively credible and explorable world exterior the on-track motion. It’s an eye catching and wealthy resurrection of Star Wars racing that’s as quick as it may be surprisingly unforgiving.
Galactic Racer’s important hook is its run-based, roguelite-inspired marketing campaign, which comes with a strict philosophy of no mid-race restarts. It is an attention-grabbing and genuinely recent method that bakes a really actual and logical feeling of danger and hazard into the motion – a sense that’s admittedly absent in racing video games with any form of rewind performance or limitless restarts. Sure, you may nonetheless pause and, sure, you may nonetheless save and are available again later – however you in any other case must dwell with the results of what occurs out on the observe. It’s a construction that makes the racing tense and significant, even when racing over the identical landscapes again and again does develop repetitive.
Now This Isn’t Pod Racing
Whether or not by intent or not, the large time hole between Galactic Racer and traditional Star Wars video games like Episode I: Racer and Racer Revenge feels nearly mirrored in Fuse Video games’ unique story. That’s, the place these video games had been set within the prequel interval, Galactic Racer is ready within the aftermath of Return of the Jedi, the place the artwork of podracing is a distant relic of a bygone period. Unsurprisingly, podracing does nonetheless characteristic right here, and it’s represented extremely; lightning fast, and with impeccably genuine sound design. Nonetheless, I’m hesitant to explain particularly how or when it pops up exterior of the quickplay modes. Simply know that I really feel just like the Fuse Video games crew had been paying shut consideration when Maverick discovered an F-14 within the coronary heart of enemy territory throughout the High Gun sequel, or when Bond retrieved his DB5 in Skyfall. I could also be a fairly informal Star Wars fan by most metrics, however I do love stuff that imbues autos with a way of previous soul – even fantasy ones. That’s my jam.
For readability, the majority of the Galactic Racing League storage consists of landspeeders, speeder bikes, and a brand new car sort known as skim speeders. Bikes are quick however fragile, and skim speeders have a podracer-esque skill to financial institution fully vertically to slice via gaps and switch more durable, however landspeeders have confirmed to be my favorite class. They’re primarily floating automobiles, and I get pleasure from their extra predictable dealing with and added sturdiness.
Because the mysterious and faceless human racer known as Shade, our final aim is to beat the Galactic Racing League’s moaning, conceited, and entitled heel Kestar Bool within the remaining head-to-head race. Nonetheless, for that to occur, we want a suitably quick car. In easy phrases, constructing and piloting a fast one requires a mixture of basic stat upgrades, efficiency elements, and numerous further perks – from devices that may be activated throughout races to particular bonuses granted to you by allies you accumulate over the course of the story. These are rationed out randomly, or earned, as we progress (and re-progress) via the championship “excursions.” I’ve grown to be a specific fan of the autopilot gadget, which is commonly a lifesaver to deal with notably treacherous stretches of observe. The truth that these devices are primed simply previous to race begins with a sequence of particular button presses, like pre-flight checks, is a really intelligent contact that offers ready on the grid a tangible sense of event. The sequence all the time ends with the ultimate go-ahead to fireplace your engines, which cough to life and glow more durable as you squirt the throttle. It was essential to someone at Fuse Video games that we should always be capable of rev our speeders like hotrodders at a pink gentle, as a result of it appears cool. I really like little thrives like that.
Now, speeders are scrapped between excursions, so that you’ll want to decide on and set-up a brand new one every time. It’s not an answer I discover I’m loving, contemplating I used to be by no means in a position to set up any actual sense of possession or attachment to a car. Theoretically, you may construct a reproduction of the same-looking car each time – with the identical add-on beauty elements and the identical livery – however you will have to wave goodbye to particular upgrades you may’ve actually loved. The extra closely upgraded your earlier speeder, the extra factors you’ll must spend on pumping up its basic stats earlier than you begin – but it surely received’t behave the identical as your final one. Not except you may choose up the identical upgrades in your subsequent run, whether or not by probability reward or recognizing them in your mechanic Hibi’s randomised choice. As a roguelite rookie and a standard racing recreation meathead, I’ve to confess I didn’t very like dropping highly effective upgrades that actually suited my racing fashion to what’s primarily a cube roll, however I do respect the novelty of needing to return to grips with one thing not typical of the same old racers I play.
Excursions unfold over three (and later 5) planets earlier than culminating in a remaining knockout occasion. Failing at any level means you’ll have to begin an entire new one over once more. That is fairly elegantly and thoughtfully applied, because of the racing paddock at every occasion you may absolutely discover in third-person. Not solely does this construct an genuine world across the Galactic Racing League – which in flip crafts a world I really feel like I’m inhabiting, relatively than simply shuffling via menu screens – it lets Fuse Video games fill it with characters that may acknowledge your earlier failures as you come for one more crack on the title. That’s, you’re not truly restarting, or just being scrubbed again in time till you get it proper – time retains shifting ahead and also you simply must maintain racing till you emerge victorious. The story is cut up into three distinct acts, so observe that messing up within the third act means you’ll simply must take one other run on the third act. That’s, it doesn’t ship us all the way in which again to the preliminary League qualification section, and for that I’m grateful.
Nonetheless, Galactic Racer’s core weak spot is that it sadly doesn’t characteristic sufficient planets to keep away from feeling overly repetitive. Whereas I’m acutely aware a roguelite construction brings with it an expectation of a sure stage of repetition, it does develop into pretty tedious slogging via its small checklist of repeating planets over successive makes an attempt. The particular circuits used, the order of occasion sorts, and the way they department over the span of a championship are shuffled from tour to tour. There are reverse layouts for the tracks, too. Nonetheless, the backdrops are nonetheless all the time the identical. Having a pair extra planets that might’ve been swapped out and in would’ve gone a good distance in decreasing the fatigue that rapidly units in after a number of runs via the identical areas.
Intergalactic Planetary
It’s a fantastically realised array of planets, although, and the small print of the observe environments are as glorious as they’re different. Jakku, as an example, has routes traced via its immense graveyard of battle wreckage – swinging from huge open blasts throughout debris-covered dunes one second, to cramped sections of makeshift tunnels fashioned by half-destroyed spacecraft the subsequent. Crait is characterised by sprawling caves and its flat, salt-covered floor – which speeders whip as much as expose the pink mineral beneath. Lantaana is roofed in dense forest linked by lava tubes, and Sentinel I is a poisonous wasteland the place racers should negotiate slim causeways over acidic swimming pools.
Every planet and observe has its personal set of properties that may enable you or hurt you, relying on the way you race and the upgrades you’ve utilized. Maybe my favorite instance of this dynamic is Ando Prime, a wholly frozen planet, the place heating tubes have been dropped sporadically across the circuits. Passing via these will thaw out the frozen management surfaces that numb your steering inputs, however staying out of those sizzling bins permits you to run your delicate ramjet for for much longer earlier than it catastrophically burns out. It’s a racer that primarily by no means stops asking you questions.
On the subject of burning out, it’d be massively remiss of me to not point out how a lot I am keen on the Burnout-inspired takedowns that Galactic Racer actively encourages, with speeders on the incorrect facet of a hefty slam being speared into trackside obstacles and splintering into hundreds of shards. Not solely are they incentivised with a slow-motion takedown digicam, which swings again to soak within the spectacle, however they are often factored into the improve system. Any time I spot it on a run, I all the time decide to seize the improve that replenishes my speeder’s battery for every profitable takedown – since doing so provides me extra bursts of my autopilot skill.
However whereas the Burnout connection is robust (and hardly stunning contemplating the roots of Fuse Video games’ founders attain again to Burnout creator Criterion Video games), maybe what I really like most of all is how a lot Galactic Racer surprisingly jogged my memory of a sci-fi MotorStorm. That’s, the usually huge tracks stuffed with pure obstacles and a number of routes, the multi-class nature of the grid, and the truth that holding onto that ramjet increase a fraction too lengthy leads to a fiery and speedy unscheduled disassembly. Funnily sufficient, similar to the unique MotorStorm, Galactic Racer additionally has no splitscreen multiplayer. 12-player on-line racing (or eight, for podracers) has a six-event championship construction that works a bit like a shortened model of the singleplayer excursions (the place your upgraded car is discarded after the finale) – however that’s for a special form of participant than me.