This new take on a Star Wars racing game took most of us by surprise, but it happened to be a good one. Speed, crashes, banter, and everything you could ask for in a racing game!.
A Great Racing Experience for (some) Star Wars Fans
Racing games are nothing new; they have been around for decades, and some of them have rightfully earned their spot among some of the most memorable titles in the industry.
While I have never been a fan of racing games, I’ve spent a few hundred hours in my lifetime playing titles like Gran Turismo, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Burnout 3, and Star Wars Episode I Racer. If you’re familiar with these titles, you’ve noticed that all of them were released around two decades ago.
So, playing a Star Wars racing game after so many years was an intimidating but exciting experience. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to keep up with the lore or simply to try something with a slower pace.
8
Star Wars Galactic Racer Review is a roguelite racer that won over a lapsed racing fan
Is the story worth it?
The story revolves around a human called Shade (your character) who gets hired as a new pilot in a racing tour.
The main antagonist is Kestar Bool, a spoiled son of a rich Caskadag family. He has amassed a considerable amount of influence in the racing circuit with intimidation and dirty tricks and will do anything to maintain his status as the “champion”.
In order to take that title from him, you have to qualify for the league, and then beat him not once but twice. To reach each of these three main goals, you must complete a whole tour that consists of many races that take place on different circuits. Some of them are typical races, others are time-based challenges, and a few more are “eliminator” races.
While the story itself isn’t something out of this world, it’s improved by all the unique characters that are involved.
As you progress, you’ll get to know their motivations, personalities, and their true opinions about Kestar Bool. Even if they are simple, they still provide value to the overall experience.
What makes it more interesting is the fact that it is a roguelite. To enter a tour, you get a league token, but if you crash enough times in a race or end up in fourth place or lower in an eliminator race, you’re out and must begin from the start. However, you get to keep a few permanent upgrades. Very similar to restarting a run in Hades.
Starting a tour from scratch isn’t as bad as it sounds. You need decent upgrades before being able to keep up with Kestar Bool, just in terms of speed, so don’t worry about failing in your first attempts; it’s intended to be that way.
A tour can take you to Jakku, Laantana, Sentinel I, Ando Prime, Crait, and Derven Acos. While all of them have multiple tracks and extra variables that slightly change your experience, I still feel like the number of planets is limited and gets repetitive very fast, but that is also a core element of most racing games.
This isn’t a dealbreaker due to how everything else is so good, but I really want to explore new places while going at stupidly high speeds.
Imagine racing on Mustafar where the smallest mistake sends you to the lava, or in the middle of a battle between pirates and the New Republic with stuff exploding or falling into the track.
How the devs balanced strategy vs speed
While speed is a must in any racing game, in Galactic Racer it is also a double-edged weapon. Being too fast can cause you to crash multiple times in circuits with small tunnels, very closed curves, or after a jump.
I’ve lost count of how many times my Landspeeder crashed simply because I wasn’t skilled enough to control it. This happened especially in the first hours of my playthrough when I wasn’t familiar with all the tracks, and I was reacting to the race rather than going with a plan.
In this game, learning the most efficient path in each race is one of the most important things you need to do. Everyone learns this at a different pace; my advice is to be patient and try to learn from every crash.
Aside from being fast enough and learning all courses, you also need to be aware of environmental factors like acid pools, lava rivers, and extreme hot/cold weather, and even mines on specific tracks.
Then, it’s the other racers you need to worry about. Everyone has different abilities and parts that further enhance their specific playstyle. Some of them use shields or focus on gaining a lot of boost, which won’t hurt your vehicle, but others go all-in on attacking you.
You also have multiple stats that can be upgraded. You can prioritize different stats depending on which vehicle you are driving and your playstyle.
- Cornering: How quickly and tightly a vehicle can take turns
- Afterburner: How quickly the vehicle accelerates, decelerates, and how much boost is received
- Resilience: How well the vehicle can handle damage, avoid Malfunctions, and resist negative status effects
- Ramjet: How much boost is provided by the Ramjet
- Battery: The maximum amount of Energy available to activate Abilities
- Drift/Kinetic Burst/Knife Edge: How tightly the vehicle turns and how much speed is maintained during this moment
The Landspeeder, Speeder Bike, or Skim Speeder behave differently. It’s up to you to decide which one fits you.
Now this is podracing
We can’t have a Star Wars racing game without podracers. Driving a podracer happens in the campaign, but in very specific moments, many of them are in races against a single pilot. Nonetheless, the game does a great job of explaining why you aren’t using that monster of a vehicle instead of something like a landspeeder.
Fortunately for all of us, there are dedicated modes where we can play with and against other Podracers in the most insanely fast races you could imagine.
There are six famous podracer pilots you can use: Dud Bolt, Gasgano, Teemto Pagalies, Ben Quadinaros, Ody Mandrell, and Sebulba. All of them have unique strengths and weaknesses.
Playing the campaign is very fun, but nothing beats playing as one of these guys on the Boonta Eve, especially if you are going against other people. I can’t speak for others, but I don’t care that much about winning or losing in this mode simply because I’m already having so much fun with it.
Customization
Customization is one of the few aspects of Galactic Racer that are underwhelming. The Landspeeder, Speeder Bike, and Skim Speeder models are OK. Nothing too memorable or surprising.
At least you’re able to combine parts of different models to create your own custom vehicle, but in terms of individual models, they are just decent.
Being able to play with the color patterns and styles is what makes it easier to come up with something enjoyable, but I’m still wondering why they didn’t include more models.
Lots of modes, but one feature is missing
If you don’t want to play the campaign, you can simply go straight into the multiplayer, arcade, or scenarios mode.
In scenarios, you race as a predetermined racer over multiple tracks and end up in an eliminator race where you only achieve victory by claiming first place. In Arcade, you try to beat specific times to get a bronze, silver, or gold medal.
Where the fun really begins is in multiplayer.
You race against other people in fierce races that can be as intense as the Boonta Eve or the most hilarious crash party you’ve ever witnessed. Regardless of what you decide to play, it’s incredibly fun.
We have the multiplayer tour or quick race. Like in the campaign, the tour consists of a series of races with the same players involved. The quick race is just a simple race with nothing at stake.
Both modes can be played with a podracer or your standard vehicle. Obviously, podracers only go against other podracers.
For this mode specifically, I highly recommend that you turn on first-person view. The immersion is as good as it gets, especially if you own an ultrawide monitor.
There is one notable miss in multiplayer: no custom lobbies, and you can only group with two more friends for multiplayer. Meaning that you can’t invite a big group of friends to have some fun or to decide who’s going to pay for the pizza.
Final Thoughts & Review Card
Star Wars Galactic Racer is a straightforward game that uses the idea behind Episode I Racer and takes it to the next level.
The story is good enough to make you dislike the main antagonist and also “care” about some of the new characters (Biddy Blas).
Everything is so fast and chaotic that it’s very hard for me to be mad when I crash so many times in such hilarious ways. Don’t get me wrong, getting kicked out of the tour right before completing the final act was frustrating, but that is how it is in these games.
Speed and skills are obviously important, but the game also provides multiple tools to turn your vehicle into something that represents your favorite playstyle.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this game to all Star Wars fans because racing games can be extremely frustrating if you’re not decent at them. If you get mad after getting your butt kicked in Mario Kart, Galactic Racer might not be for you.
On the other hand, if you’ve ever enjoyed a racing game, you should definitely give Galactic Racer a try. Even if you’re not a hardcore fan of the franchise. It’s just a great racing experience that can be enjoyed solo or with a friend.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer
PLATFORMS
PC (Steam)
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series X|S
GENRE:
Racing, Roguelite
RELEASE:
October 6, 2026
LENGTH:
8-15 hours (campaign)
DEVELOPER:
Fuse Games
PUBLISHER:
Secret Mode
For:
Racing & roguelite fans
Similar:
Star Wars Episode I Racer
Burnout 3: Takedown
Hades
Strengths
Insane sense of speed
Multiple playstyles available
Podracing at its best
Fun, fun, and more fun
Weaknesses
Limited planets
Repetitive
Can’t pet the cat
Not enough customization
Ratings
Final Verdict
9
Average from our ratings.
