I love Star Wars and play a lot of Star Wars games. Some are good. Some are bad. But so many of them are either shooters or third-person action games. Those can be fun, sure, but the Star Wars universe can support so much more than that. So I’m very excited about Star Wars: Galactic Racer, an upcoming fast-paced arcade racer with some roguelike elements. And its arrival just a few weeks after Zero Company hopefully marks the start of more Star Wars games doing something different.
Galactic Racer, out on October 6 on PS5, Xbox, and PC, is the first game from Fuse Games, a studio founded by some key folks behind the fantastically fast Burnout franchise. And I mean, the idea of some former Burnout devs and leaders working on a new racing game is an exciting prospect in and of itself. But the fact that Galactic Racer is also set in the Star Wars universe and will feature podracing and iconic planets like Tatooine makes it sound like this game could be very special.
When you think about it, Star Wars and racing seem like a perfect match. Heck, back in the day we got a few Star Wars–themed racing games (and even a Twisted Metal knock-off). So what happened? Why did they stop getting made?
Why did it take this long for a new Star Wars racing game?
In an interview with IGN, Fuse Games CEO and founder Matt Webster and creative director Kieran Crimmins talked about that very topic, with Webster telling the outlet that the more the team pondered its first game, the more they wondered, “Okay, why hasn’t there been a Star Wars racing game for so long?”
And it’s true, it has been 24 years since 2002’s Racer’s Revenge, the last big Star Wars racing game. Maybe you think Lucasfilm is the reason, but according to Crimmins, that’s not the case at all.
“It was fairly obvious that [a Star Wars racing game was] probably going to be the best game we could make for our first game,” Crimmins told IGN.
“It would just be the best game that we could make, full stop. And then we took that to our partners in Lucasfilm, because we worked with them before, we know them, so we could say, ‘Hey guys, what do you think of this thing?’ And they basically said the same thing back to us, where they were like, ‘Yeah, we are really excited about this stuff. We love that stuff that you’re doing. That absolutely makes sense for us.’ And as soon as you have that kind of mutual excitement, it’s like, ‘We’ve got to make this happen.’” And so they did!
I hope Star Wars: Galactic Racer is the beginning of a new era
Next month, Star Wars: Galactic Racer arrives, and based on some early previews and hands-on experiences people are reporting with the game, including Kotaku’s own Ethan Gach, it sounds like Fuse Games has completely understood the assignment and crafted one heck of a track-based Star Wars racer.
I’m also intrigued by the inclusion of some rogue-like elements into the game’s main campaign mode. Players will have to make some hard choices as they win races and upgrade their vehicle if they want to reach the grand championship. I think that’s a smart way to add some extra variety to a game built around racing across the same tracks over and over again. It also might make you think twice before you risk a dangerous slam into an opponent.
The timing of its release is very exciting for Star Wars fans, as it’s set to launch just a few short weeks after Star Wars Zero Company. (No colon in that title, confusing.) That was a fantastic Star Wars game that provided players with an XCOM-like tactical strategy experience filled with plenty of Star Wars hijinks like clones, droids, and even a Jedi or two. Even its technical flaws couldn’t hold it back from being a breath of fresh air in the Star Wars video game sphere, an example that not all Star Wars games need to be third-person action games or shooters. You can do something different, and the end result can be awesome.
This is a trend I really, really want to see more of. I think Star Wars can support all sorts of genres. There was a time when we’d get that wide assortment of Star Wars games. Not so much today, but I hope that is starting to change. I want a Star Wars narrative-driven game like Mixtape. A Star Wars sports game. A survival horror game that plays like Resident Evil 9, but is set in the Star Wars universe. A Star Wars city builder! A Star Wars comedy game! A Star Wars game where you play as Dexter Jetster and run a small diner!
Come on, let’s have some fun with this massively popular franchise packed full of weird characters, wild aliens, strange worlds, and loads of stories to tell. It doesn’t all have to be Lego game, shooter, third-person thingy. Hopefully, Star Wars: Galactic Racer is not just a great racing game, but more confirmation that we are entering a new, diverse era of Star Wars gaming.