Star Wars Galactic Racer Review – Very fast, very dangerous

The Star Wars universe is constantly expanding, the iconic setting providing a galaxy of stories to tell. In video game terms, recent years have seen us stepping away from the tales of the Jedi into the wider, grittier world beyond, filled with outlaws, bounty hunters and crime bosses. Star Wars Galactic Racer from Fuse Games – a team made up of former Criterion developers, famous for working on the Burnout franchise – is the next attempt at broadening the franchise’s reach: an arcade racer with starship fuel in its veins.

You play as Shade, a pilot that Darius Pax, founder of the Galactic Racing League, calls into action. Reigning champion Kestar Bool is making a play for Darius’ spot at the head of the organisation, and he wants you to throw a hydrospanner in the works. Bool is a petty, stuck-up, unequivocally dangerous enemy to make, but you set yourself directly in his sights by beating him in an exhibition race on Jakku. As you soon learn, Shade has their own reasons for wanting to take Bool down, setting in a motion a revenge story set in a galaxy, far, far away.

The Campaign is broken down into three acts, with you initially heading out as part of a League tour, looking to qualify for the Galactic League itself. There’s multiple events through each tour, and you choose your path through them, each race giving you the opportunity to earn parts for your ultimate vehicle, with the aim of winning the Championship Race at the end of each Tour, and defeating Bool.

With each successful race, you earn credits and upgrade packs, which in turn let you tailor your vehicle as you see fit. Prefer tighter handling and cornering? Put your upgrade packs into that. Want your Ramjet to boost for longer? There’s a slot for that, too.

Where things become tricky is with your League Tokens. You need a League Token to enter races and carry on with that Tour, but can lose them for wrecking too many times in regular races, failing Head-to-Head races and getting knocked out before the final three in Eliminator events. Run out of tokens and you’re immediately eliminated. This gives Galactic Racer a Roguelite vein – yes, even our racing games are Roguelites now – and just like you’d expect, when you’re knocked out you can then use the Tuning Points you’ve earned on permanent upgrades that will carry over to your next attempt.

Those upgrades are stretched across your three different craft types: classic Landspeeders and Speeder Bikes are joined by Skim Speeders, a fast but flimsy class that sit somewhere between the podracers of Episode 1, and the Crait ski speeders of Episode 7. Once you’ve settled on your vehicle, there’s then a Racer Style to add to your loadout. This dictates your first in-race special ability, with your first style being Survivor, a defensive loadout that gives you a shield and increases your speed for as long as you don’t crash. Achieving various other landmarks opens up different styles, letting you tailor your racer to your playstyle, doubling down on what works for you, while avoiding what doesn’t.

There’s then a cavalcade of abilities and upgrades, with the in-game shop run by your mechanic Hibi, spending those hard-won credits on parts and improved abilities to see you through the next round.

At first, it can all feel quite overwhelming, especially when so many racing games sit you in a car and just task you with getting to the finish line in first place. However, once you get accustomed to the different events, structure and upgrade possibilities, it feels utterly refreshing. This is a truly modern racer, with a modern outlook.

There’s a risk and reward to the path that you choose through a campaign. Take on races and your risks are minimal, but that sixth place finish isn’t going to do as much for your upgrade potential. You’ll need to take part in riskier events like the Eliminator, or meet up with shady aliens willing to do a deal with you, if you want to have the best shot at the championship.

As Campaign structures for a racing game go, it works incredibly well, and the narrative drive is given all the more impact thanks to the excellent Star Wars-accurate creatures, locations, voice acting and tone. I’ve enjoyed the criminal underworld-set stories of modern Star Wars far more than their Jedi-filled companions in recent years, and after Star Wars Outlaws and Zero Company, Galactic Racer feels like a perfect addition to the roster and the mythology of Star Wars’ underbelly.

As you move from planet to planet during the tour, you get to explore a hub area filled with other racers, key characters and shops, furthering the excellent world building. You’ll meet a great new roster of characters, including the odd big name from the wider Star Wars universe, but my favourite has to be Biddy Blas, whose ridiculously high-pitched Huttese makes him sound like a very angry toddler. Brilliant.

The individuality extends into each planet and the unique traits of their tracks. Crait’s distinctive red dust disrupts your Ramjet, while Sentinel 1’s caustic rivers of acid threaten to melt you to death, and it all adds in new risks to manoeuvre your way through while trying to win a race. I particularly like Ando Prime’s icy tundra, as having to fly through heating vents to stop your vehicle’s handling from freezing up feels both realistic and suitably fantastical. I think the only negative is that the level of detail can, at times, make it hard to see your route through, particularly on the debris-strewn surface of Jakku. It makes your first run through some tracks even more difficult.

For fans of the franchise, one of the most exciting inclusions will be podracing. This was downplayed around the game’s announcement, and are largely framed through an ageing Sebulba reminiscing about his past, letting you play as the volatile Dug in his heyday. Podracers live up to their ‘very fast, very dangerous’ depiction, with their fragility making the racing action even more tense. If you played Episode 1 Racer back in the day, this is quite possibly a dream come true, playing as and facing off against the likes of Ben Quadinaros, Ody Mandrell and Teemto Pagalies once more, and there are various boons to be had from working your way through Sebulba’s memories alongside the mainline campaign, too.

Galactic Racer is the kind of game that just gets better the further you go. The gameplay loop affords heaps of customisation, unlocks and dramatic racing action, and the further you double down on your own skills and those of your craft, the bigger the rewards and the better the unlocks. Outside of the Campaign, there’s also Arcade time trials to set times and compare against your friends, unique campaigns for each of the League racers, and then there’s the multiplayer.

Multiplayer has drop-in quick races of course, but the real meat of them is the Tour. Coming in 12-player Speeder Tour and 8-player Podracer Tour versions, these adapt that campaign structure to remove the risk of elimination and make it all about creating your best build for a winner takes all finale. You can bet on your finishing position, pick a rival racer to try to beat, try to satisfy a backer’s racing request and then spend those winnings on your upgrades. Even that final race asks you to select who you think the final winner will be. It’s a canny way of keeping people invested through a 30-minute play session, instead of dropping out at the first hint of fourth place, and I hope it works.

Perhaps, the only downside is that these structures are, by design, repetitive. That said, I think Fuse Games have done an incredible job of balancing that repetition with a steady stream of unlocks, parts and the incremental improvement of your craft. It’s up to you to explore the different ways you can succeed.