Biddy Blas deserves no peace. The four-foot-tall Crocin menace is always screaming over the intercom during races. Even without subtitles to translate his Huttese shrieks, it’s clear he’s being an obnoxious sore loser as he slides into sixth place. If they froze him in carbonite, tossed him in a sarlacc pit, or fed him to a rancor, the galaxy would be a slightly more peaceful place and down one small idiot. The urge to despise someone so tiny speaks to how intense Star Wars: Galactic Racer is; emotions run high when the speedometer is topping out. This intensity makes Galactic Racer a phenomenal racing game, one that doesn’t let up on the throttle.
This is quite literal since Galactic Racer is capable of extraordinary speeds, as it is not bound by wheels or real-world science. Its array of classic Star Wars vehicles all have different stats, but they each are capable of making F1 racing seem slow. The screen shakes and the edges blur. The Doppler effect almost becomes part of the excellent Gordy Haab-composed soundtrack. And the engines screech as if they are about to jet into space.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
All of these elements come together to make a racing game that understands how important speed is at a fundamental level. This is especially true for one under the Star Wars banner, since podracing in particular is repeatedly billed as an extremely dangerous sport in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Players have to feel like they’re in danger, and ratcheting up the velocity fulfills this fantasy.
This respectable dedication to letting players put the metaphorical pedal to the metal would be worthless if the game controlled poorly, but thankfully its various crafts are responsive enough to carry the burden of its high speed. Drifting, while handled differently with each vehicle type, lets players speed through impossibly tight turns and almost single-handedly makes races manageable. Tracks are also usually quite legible at a glance, as Galactic Racer employs helpful guiding lights that obviously gesture at the correct way forward. Sometimes an odd brown piece of debris will fade into the brown background and lead to a crash, but the game is designed well enough to accommodate the high speed it runs at.
At first, Galactic Racer doesn’t seem like much more than a relatively basic racing game with a need for speed. There are two different boost gauges, a few vehicle types, gadgets to equip, and the ability to ram into opponents as if they were in a Burnout game. It’s a solid set of mechanics that leads to a casually interesting racing game, but Galactic Racer ascends once these systems come into contact with its fantastic track design.
Along with various shortcuts, each course has all sorts of specific obstacles. Like the later MotorStorm games, lava and water sources can cool and heat engines and can hurt or help boosting, but it goes further than that. Ando Prime is a frozen tundra that can lead to extended boosts, but getting too cold can lock up the steering wheel and make turns almost impossible to take cleanly. Heated vents along the way can stave off vehicular frostbite, but these are small tunnels and easy to crash into.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jakku’s extreme heat inhibits boosting, so players are encouraged to take shaded routes among the skeletons of the fallen Star Destroyers, which are tighter and riskier to weave in and out of. Sentinel One is an acid-filled hellhole that strictly punishes sloppy steering, yet rewards those who bring a shield with exclusive shortcuts. Crait’s signature salty crust takes slipstreaming out of the equation, as the dusty red trails that follow each vehicle choke engines and cut off boosting.
All of these different hazards require different strategies and get more complicated by modifiers that add thick fog, total darkness, or mines to the mix or reverse the course entirely. By repeatedly serving up hostile maps that are always shifting, players are obliged to sit forward and concentrate in order to have a shot at the podium. Racing games often rely on power-ups to add variability, but Galactic Racer achieves the same result by making the tracks the biggest danger. Given how effective these variables are, hopefully more get added down the line.
This penchant for variability organically meshes with its roguelite campaign. Players are guided through a few planets with different events and power-ups before eventually facing off against a boss. Much like the racing itself, it doesn’t seem special in the first act. There’s not a ton of variety, and the first boss acts as an unfortunate progression blocker for those who haven’t dumped enough permanent skill points into speed.
But the game truly opens up after that initial tutorial-like hump and gives way to an impeccably well-honed roguelite. The number of event types grows to include the faster and more deadly podraces, rotating duels against bosses, and more types of objective-based trials that sit on top of the handful of events from the first act, meaning players aren’t doing the same thing over and over. The pool of upgrades and weapons also grows significantly, allowing for more synergistic builds that weave the many mechanics together. It’s possible to craft builds where the two boost meters empower each other or ones that prioritize gadget recharging and thrive in cool conditions. There are so many interlocking systems and possible perks, and the combinations feel endless.
Picking upgrades plays into the broader economy that beautifully balances risk and reward. Sponsors are the easiest example of this dichotomy, since completing their challenges and performing well nets money and perks, but failing to meet their standards means they’ll take a substantial cut of the winnings. Betting against the other racers is more simple, as more skilled drivers offer greater payouts but can humble the most arrogant drivers by cleaning out their wallets. Hard collisions also have a chance to implement permanent debuffs, and while they can be downright debilitating, they’re also expensive to fix.
Losing money is painful because there are so many ways to spend it. Perks, vehicle stat boosts, and gadgets are the three main ways to drop cash and are all viable. There’s enough flexibility to spec freely and pursue certain loadouts, but it’s all dictated by how much cash is on hand.
All of these mechanics are collectively always needling players, which is what a well-built roguelike does. Stagnation is a sin that’s anathema to the genre, and everything in Galactic Racer is built around shaking up the status quo. From its array of track variants to the large collection of upgrades to its moderately high difficulty, runs don’t play out similarly or always go according to plan. The magic lies within that unpredictability and gives weight to the choices players have to make at each turn, both literally and metaphorically. Losing focus — it is a mentally demanding game, after all — and crashing enough times to automatically fail out of a race is devastating, but the looming specter of failure gives the campaign a level of stress other more traditional racers don’t have.
The roguelike mechanics, in a surprising twist, have a positive impact on its other modes, as well. Its multiplayer streamlines the process and has players quickly buying upgrades and setting up bets between races for extra dough. The same pressure of needing to perform in order to craft the best vehicle is still there, but it’s been simplified without losing its essence. It demonstrates how strong the core mechanics are and doesn’t need to rely on any artificial FOMO-related engagement bait to actually be engaging.
The Scenario mode also utilizes the game’s roguelike elements, albeit through different means. Instead of going through a branching campaign, players are given a predetermined route with a pre-built loadout based on the other NPC racers. This compels players to use abilities or vehicle types they may have otherwise ignored and gets them out of their comfort zone. By handing out rigid loadouts at first before opening up the shop, players are required to make builds from different starting points and potentially see more possibilities. There are many ways to play Galactic Racer, so any way to implore players to experiment is beneficial.
The Arcade mode is mainly time trials and straightforward races that focus purely on driving; don’t expect upgrade mechanics here. Even though it removes some of the game’s best elements, it’s simple and provides small doses of the adrenaline found elsewhere but in a different form. There’s strangely no way to make custom races, but it’s a relatively small omission.
Slapping all the switches before a race in a hectic quick time event, firing up the afterburner, and watching the parts of wrecked speeders gracefully tumble through the air all evoke the iconic podracing scene in The Phantom Menace. But Star Wars: Galactic Racer is so much more than a slavish homage to one drawn-out set piece in a terrible movie from 1999. It is instead an expertly constructed racing game designed to push players and force them to make interesting decisions under duress, a tension only heightened by the game’s sensational sense of speed and pervasive roguelite mechanics. It’s been over two decades since the last Star Wars racing game, but Galactic Racer makes for one incredible return to the genre.
A PS5 copy of Star Wars: Galactic Racer was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Are you excited to jump into the first Star Wars racing game in decades? Send us your answer in the comments below.
