The beloved galaxy far, far away is booming in the gaming world right now, and while it’s got plenty of competitors, both Star Wars-related and elsewhere in the racing genre, Star Wars: Galactic Racer has enough claim to boast that it leads the pack.
Inspired by the cult classic Star Wars Episode 1: Racer on Nintendo 64, Galactic Racer comes to the grid not just as a replica of racing games with a galactic spin, but rather as an entirely new contender altogether, with the capacity to flip the script entirely for the racing genre.
In my dashes across iconic planets, behind the wheel of authentic vehicles and surrounded by a cast featuring a wide array of characters, I was mesmerized, addicted, and, at times, cursing my luck as a run with so much potential ended in a fiery mess.
Run It Back
Run-based racing is the name of the game in Star Wars: Galactic Racer, with the mechanics present in Campaign and Online Modes, and it makes for an entirely different experience than I’ve had in any other racing game.
Aesthetically, your vehicle remains the same, barring any customization options you’ve made, but, beneath the hood, things are different. Very, very different.
To make it easier to comprehend, I’ll discuss how the format works in Campaign. For the most part, it remains the same for multiplayer, though there are some differences.
In Campaign, each Tour begins with some minor choices – a Racer Style, providing your first Ability, Favors, which grant additional bonuses and are unlocked by interacting with other characters, and selecting from the three available vehicles.
After each race, you’ll earn additional rewards to improve the core stats of your vehicle, add extra Abilities or effects, and more. The process repeats, and repeats, until you reach one of several conclusions. Regularly, depending on your driving skills, this will lead you to be ‘Wrecked’, with serious crashes reducing one of your lives before your final elimination.
Upon elimination, it’s back to the drawing board, and all those selections and tweaks you made to your vehicle in the last Tour are now gone. You’re not entirely back to square one, however, as you’ll have earned some currency to unlock some permanent boosts, but it’s pretty much a blank slate.
Wreckless Replayability
The run-based racing will be familiar to any roguelite player, and it’s a format that serves the racing genre well. Rather than saving your cash, splashing out on a supermachine, and then leaving every opponent in your wake with ease, every choice matters, and the risk-versus-reward nature is prevalent throughout.
It impacts pretty much everything you’ll do in the game. When selecting the next event in a Tour, you’ll have to weigh up whether to opt for a traditional race, which won’t erase your progress unless you crash too many times, or an Eliminator race, where racers in the last position are removed periodically until just three remain. Fail to hit those podium spots, and it’s the end of the line.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer’s run-based approach already lured me in during a preview session earlier this year, and the format has got better, as when I played before, there wasn’t the option to permanently boost your vehicle with Tuning Points, and you were put right back at the start, which made progression feel a lot longer.
The Campaign is an absolute blast, and having been comfortably beaten by Sebulba in the aforementioned preview session, I’m glad I can finally say he was firmly put in his place.
One minor downside, however, is that events in the campaign can often feel a bit samey. There are only a few options for the format, and each Tour is pretty lengthy, which meant I couldn’t really stomach long play sessions without mixing it up by diving into another mode, but that’s not an issue limited to Galactic Racer, and instead is an issue prevalent with the racing genre as a whole.
Multiplayer Madness
The crown for Star Wars: Galactic Racer is, undoubtedly, multiplayer. Here, the run-based system remains, and with every player on the grid facing their own crucial upgrade choices after the end of each event, it presents a constant battle for the ages.
Most impressive, however, is how Galactic Racer manages to completely erase the feeling of losing entirely. In the multiplayer sessions I had, I genuinely didn’t care too much about my position, and was instead focused on beating an enemy I had marked or securing revenge against someone who wrecked me in the last round.
This will come to a head even further when playing with friends, where my core desire will be to thwart their attempts to secure victory and push them ever closer to the dark side.
Multiplayer opportunities were restricted during the early access period for reviews, but it was more than enough time for me to cement my opinion that it’s here that Galactic Racer will shine the most, and I can’t wait to play alongside friends.
All in all, Galactic Racer is a near-perfect game that significantly shakes up a racing genre that has become somewhat stale, and I truly believe it could mark the start of the next generation for the genre, in a similar way that the likes of Forza Horizon led to the open-world focus that currently dominates the racing scene.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer
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