For a series as storied as Star Wars, it borders on baffling that Star Wars: Galactic Racer arrives as the first new game of its kind in over two decades. Developer Fuse Games' title successfully expands the racing hangar beyond classic podracers, features gorgeous course design, and presents an explorable world outside the on-track action. It’s an eye-catching and rich resurrection of Star Wars racing that’s as fast as it can be surprisingly unforgiving.
Galactic Racer’s main hook is its run-based, roguelite-inspired campaign, which comes with a strict philosophy of no mid-race restarts. This approach injects a genuine sense of risk and danger into the action, a feeling often absent in racing games with rewind functionality or unlimited restarts. While players can pause and save their progress, they must live with the consequences of what occurs on the track. This structure makes the racing tense and meaningful, even if traversing the same landscapes repeatedly can grow monotonous.
Beyond Podracing
The massive time gap between Galactic Racer and classic Star Wars games like Episode I: Racer feels mirrored in Fuse Games' original story. Set in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi, the art of podracing is a distant relic. Podracing does feature and is represented incredibly well, with lightning-quick speeds and impeccably authentic sound design. However, the bulk of the Galactic Racing League garage consists of landspeeders, speeder bikes, and a new vehicle type called skim speeders. Bikes are fast but fragile, and skim speeders can bank vertically to navigate tight turns, but landspeeders, with their predictable handling and added durability, have proven a favorite.
Players assume the role of a mysterious racer named Shade, aiming to beat the Galactic Racing League’s heel Kestar Bool. Success requires building a suitably fast vehicle through a combination of general stat upgrades, performance parts, and additional perks. These perks, such as the lifesaver autopilot gadget, are randomly rationed or earned throughout the championship "tours." Gadgets are primed before races with specific button presses, adding a tangible sense of occasion to the starting grid.
Vehicles are scrapped between tours, meaning players must choose and set up a new one each time. This system can hinder establishing a sense of ownership or attachment to a particular vehicle, as specific upgrades might be lost. While players can theoretically build a replica of a previous vehicle with the same cosmetic parts and livery, the core performance upgrades may not be available. The more heavily upgraded a previous speeder was, the more points are allocated to its general stats, but it won't behave identically without the same specific upgrades, which are subject to random availability.
Tours unfold over three, and later five, planets before culminating in a final knockout event. Failing at any point requires starting a new tour. This is implemented elegantly through a fully explorable racing paddock at each event. This not only builds an authentic world around the Galactic Racing League, making players feel immersed rather than just navigating menus, but also allows characters to acknowledge previous failures, reinforcing that time moves forward and racers must simply continue until victorious. Failing in the third act, for example, only requires replaying that act, not returning to the initial League qualification phase.
However, Galactic Racer’s core weakness is its limited number of planets, which can lead to repetition. While the roguelite structure implies some repetition, it becomes tedious to slog through the small list of repeating planets across successive attempts. Although circuits, event orders, and branching paths are shuffled, and reverse track layouts exist, the backdrops remain the same. The inclusion of a few more planets could significantly reduce the fatigue that sets in after multiple runs through the same locations.
Intergalactic Scenery
Despite the repetition, the planets themselves are fantastically realized with excellent and varied track environments. Jakku features routes through immense war wreckage, shifting between open debris fields and cramped tunnels. Crait offers sprawling caves and salt-covered surfaces that reveal red mineral beneath. Lantaana is a dense forest linked by lava tubes, and Sentinel I is a toxic wasteland with narrow causeways over acidic pools.
Each planet and track possesses unique properties that can aid or hinder racers depending on their approach and upgrades. On the frozen planet Ando Prime, heating tubes provide temporary thawing for control surfaces, but staying out of these zones allows the ramjet to run longer before burnout. The game constantly presents strategic questions to the player.
The Burnout-inspired takedowns are a notable feature, with speeders crashing into trackside obstacles and splintering. These are incentivized with a slow-motion takedown camera and can be integrated into the upgrade system. An upgrade that replenishes the speeder's battery with each successful takedown is particularly useful for extending the autopilot ability.
Comparisons to MotorStorm are fitting, with wide tracks, natural obstacles, multiple routes, and multi-class grids. Holding the ramjet boost too long results in rapid, fiery disassembly. Similar to the original MotorStorm, Galactic Racer lacks splitscreen multiplayer. Its 12-player online racing features a six-event championship structure, functioning as a condensed version of the single-player tours.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a fabulous looking and frantically fast anti-grav racer that impressively goes beyond a mere graphical update of previous Star Wars racing titles. With satisfyingly customizable vehicle classes, an explorable world, and an interesting roguelite-adjacent structure that injects risk into the action, Galactic Racer is a fresh blend of Lucas lore with the destructive spirit of arcade racing. Its run-based campaign can become tedious due to repeated exposure to the same planets, and the lack of splitscreen is a disappointment. However, it stands as a confident debut from Fuse Games, successfully reigniting a long-dormant slice of the Star Wars universe.