Star Wars: Galactic Racer will allow players to engage in vehicular ramming and collisions, a design choice embraced by the game's creative director, Kieran Crimmins. "It's okay to give people a bit of a smash," Crimmins stated, referencing the aggressive racing style popularized by Criterion Games' Burnout series, where he previously worked. "I don't think we'd ever really want to make an arcade racer without some of that fun in it."
The debut title from Fuse Games, a studio founded in 2023 by veterans from EA and Criterion, melds racing pedigree with a roguelike structure. This approach focuses on the customization and upgrading of individual vehicles within each run, with the intention of trading them in for new rides upon completion. This cycle aims to deliver the adrenaline of arcade racers while emphasizing player decision-making and experimental tuning strategies.
Crimmins highlighted the depth of the build system, suggesting that aggressive playstyles are entirely viable. He pointed to a specific build concept where each takedown completely refills the player's boost and permanently increases top speed, potentially allowing for infinite boost throughout a race. He described this as "not even that hard a build to make."
The narrative of Galactic Racer is set in a post-war era, inspired by a similar historical boom in racing following World War II, which also influenced George Lucas's original vision for podracing. Players will assume the role of Shade, a customizable racer recruited by ex-pod engineer Darius Pax to compete in the Galactic League and challenge the narcissistic racer Kestar Bool. The story was developed collaboratively between Fuse Games and Lucasfilm.
The game features three primary vehicle types: landspeeders, nimble speeder bikes, and wider skim speeders, alongside the exceptionally fast podracers. The distinction between vehicle types lies not in their size but in their handling characteristics, particularly cornering and braking. Speeder bikes are agile with quick acceleration and braking, landspeeders allow for more drift-oriented maneuvers, and skim speeders, designed to evoke spacecraft handling, offer a distinct turning profile.
Fuse Games opted for a roguelike structure to introduce consequence, ensuring that every upgrade, vehicle, and part choice matters. This design also aims to highlight the journey of upgrading and allow players to organically explore a wider range of build possibilities with each playthrough. Crimmins expressed a desire to innovate within the arcade racing genre, believing the combinatorics of Galactic Racer's builds, which he estimates to be in the trillions, offer a depth previously unseen in the genre. He suggested that player creativity, rather than a grind for resources, will be the primary limiting factor in discovering the game's potential.
