Secret Mode Star Wars: Galactic Racer, the upcoming racing game set in the gargantuan sci-fi universe and developed by a team of Criterion defectors at Fuse Games, has a release date. It’ll be landing on PS5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC on October 6, and it’s done something I thought was impossible: Gotten me to care about Star Wars. I’ve seen maybe three Star Wars movies ever—critically, not the ones everyone agrees you should see—and have some faint memories of playing Episode I Racer back on the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast. The closest this franchise ever came to getting its hooks in me was the introduction of pod racing, but I never loved that game as much as some people did, and missed my opportunity to play Sega’s completely distinct Star Wars Racer Arcade title that released around the same time. But even for someone like myself, totally ignorant to the lore and not really seeking to change that, the Star Wars universe can look genuinely interesting, and some games every now and then manage to tap into that potential. Galactic Racer appears to be one of them. Honestly, if you jettison Star Wars from the name and call it Steampunk Wipeout on Alien Planets, I’d go along for the ride just as willingly. The footage we’ve seen thus far looks gorgeous, with a mix of highly detailed, claustrophobic courses and wide-open spaces. Most racing games don’t really play with scale this dramatically; in fact, it calls to mind a comparison to another old PlayStation racing game that may even be more appropriate than Wipeout. I’m getting big MotorStorm vibes from this—not merely from the lush environments, but also the incorporation of different vehicle weight classes, from speeders to larger craft. The combat element of Galactic Racer appears to be mostly centered around bashing into other racers to take them down (the folks at Fuse hail from the house of Burnout, after all), which is another MotorStorm-like wrinkle. That series mixed motorcycles and trophy trucks on the same courses, with the former having the advantage of being able to slip through traffic and take some otherwise inaccessible paths, and the latter obviously winning any wheel-to-wheel fight they found themselves in. Perhaps I’m getting carried away with my expectations here, but I’m looking forward to Galactic Racer. 2026 has shaped up to be an unexpectedly bright year for racing games, even beyond Forza Horizon 6 naturally grabbing everyone’s attention. You’ve got surprises like Screamer, Galactic Racer looking promising, and continued updates for solid early access works-in-progress, like Wreckfest 2 and Assetto Corsa Rally. Even an unreleased Ridge Racer game made it out into the world. Who says miracles can’t happen?
Liked by Jacob Walker, Oliver Macdonald
Liked by Jacob Walker, Oliver Macdonald
Liked by Jacob Walker, Oliver Macdonald
