Platforms: PS5, PC, Xbox Series X|S
When fans first stumbled out of cinemas after watching The Phantom Menace, their minds spinning from talk of trade route taxation and midichlorian counts, one thought shared by almost everyone was that podracing is very, very cool. Outside of a tie-in game and a couple of PlayStation 2-exclusive titles, podracing has been a relative blind spot in the expanded world of Star Wars. Who better, then, to bring landspeeders, speeder bikes and podracers to modern consoles, then, than many of the same people who brought us the smashing and crashing Burnout series? Here, the galaxy’s alien oddballs show up for the Galactic Racing League, including grade-A cocky socialite Kestar Boll, who you, stepping into the shoes of upcoming racer Shade, are tasked with taking down…
With floaty drifting around corners and turbo-boosting past racers, the Galactic Racer has its roots in classic arcade games, carrying with it the satisfying sense of speed. Environments whiz past you so quickly you can barely see them, making the experience feel more akin to the high-speed action racing of Wipeout than anything Burnout had to offer. Yet once you pop the hood and dig around, changing parts and spending credits, Galactic Racer’s arcade shell gives way a surprisingly in-depth Star Wars game, where not crashing at high speed becomes the very least of what you have to juggle.
A well-curated tour of the Star Wars universe.
What’s initially notable is how its campaign has far more in common with addictive roguelikes like Hades and Returnal than traditional racers. Working your way along branching paths, you can choose to partake in straight up races, brutal elimination matches, or try out new vehicles in field tests. Crash out or lose and it’s all the way back to the beginning, but not without upgrades and credits to spend, making you more prepared on your third, fourth or fifth go-around. It’s a loop that gets under your skin as you etch further and further along each run and, critically, makes you hyper-aware of each change you make to your vehicle.
While the focus is often on the racers exploding around you, it can’t be understated what a well-curated tour of the Star Wars universe Galactic Racer is. As you progress, you’ll quickly find yourself flying through film-accurate desert landscapes on Tatooine, drifting through the ruins of a Star Destroyer on Jakku and blasting across the red sands of Crait. The game also excels at making these places ones you’ll also have to adapt to as a racer. Icy environments can cause your engine to freeze, so boosting or going through one of the well-placed heat sources becomes a necessity. Conversely, boosting too much over volcanic landscapes will see thrusters quickly overheat, causing your vehicle to paint the track with exploding metal parts (at the very least providing plenty of scrap for greedy Jawas). This risk-reward battle of managing your vehicle while aggressively pursuing other racers lends each race palpable stakes and emotional payoff, particularly when you manage to dart past other speeders and cross the finish line moments before your engine blows into oblivion.
Despite the family-friendly Star Wars exterior, Galactic Racer offers a fairly punishing difficulty that, at times, will likely have you howling at the screen like a disgruntled Wookiee. Those who get sucked into its interplanetary endurance runs will eat up the challenge, but casual players may well overwhelmed by the fine-tuning required and harsh punishment for minor mistakes. Meanwhile, the great track design is occasionally let down by wide open areas where it’s not initially clear where to go, derailing your hot streak by sending you hurtling into a dead-end canyon.
In the end, though, Galactic Racer is everything you could want from a Star Wars racer, taking both the galaxy far, far away and its identity as a proper racing game very seriously. The best such titles have you itching to come back the second you put down the controller and, while you may occasionally want to throw yours as Sebulba leaves you in his dust (unsurprisingly, he’s a dirty cheat!) there’s never much doubt you’ll be back again to start a new run and do it all over again. Podracing, it turns out, really is very, very cool.
