Recent attempts to revive the genre have fallen flat, too. Milestone\u2019s Screamer<\/a> was admirably ambitious with its anime-inspired story campaign and fighting game-esque combat system, yet it flew under the radar. Consequently, arcade racers are often underlooked by publishers and reserved for the indie scene.<\/p>\n \u201cArcade racing is underserved,\u201d Fuse Games\u2019 CEO Matt Webster, who previously worked as a producer for Criterion and EA on titles including Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Burnout Paradise, told Traxion when reflecting on current state of the arcade racing scene.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we look back to the early 2000s or early 2010s, there was a proliferation. But across the history of video games, there have always been racing games.\u201d<\/p>\n Led by Webster, Fuse Games hopes to recapture this lost era of arcade racing with Star Wars: Galactic Racer<\/a> in development by former Criterion Games veterans<\/a> who worked on Burnout and Need for Speed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve tried to do is push the genre forward and shake some of those conventions. I feel like I\u2019ve been constrained over the last ten or fifteen years. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Launching in October, Galactic Racer sees players pilot vehicles from landspeeders to pod racers across different planets in the Galactic League. Its weighty vehicle handling, palm-sweating sense of speed and spectacular crashes evoke an intensity that is often missing in modern arcade racers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Depth in arcade racing games \u201chas been lost\u201d<\/p>\n Another misconception of arcade racers is that they are shallow and don\u2019t require skill. \u201cI always remind people that arcade is not the absence of depth,\u201d said Webster. \u201cIf you think about arcade games at their core, you have to put more money in it, so it\u2019s got to give you that fantasy experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s got to keep you playing. It\u2019s got to be super approachable but deep. And I think that has been lost somewhere along the line.\u201d<\/p>\n That sense of challenge and depth is pertinent in Galactic Racer. Its campaign adopts a roguelite structure, where wrecking your vehicle forces you to restart the current story act. This is balanced with an extensive upgrade system, allowing you to install and combine different parts and perks for the next run.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to make a proper triple-A arcade racer with innovation but also something familiar,\u201d Creative Director Kieran Crimmins explained.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like a privilege to put that out where the industry is right now. I play loads of double-A and indie arcade racing games, but I feel like the market for a triple-A one is absolutely open.\u201d<\/p>\n Since it\u2019s attached to the Star Wars IP, Fuse Games is confident that Galactic Racer will appeal to a mass audience who enjoy the thrill of racing but aren\u2019t necessarily car enthusiasts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s reminding people how great racing games are,\u201d said Webster. \u201cThat desire to be first. It\u2019s like a primal competitive aspect. That\u2019s what gaming is about, and I think it\u2019s been lost along the line. I feel like we\u2019re bringing that back.\u201d<\/p>\n An avalanche of arcade racers<\/p>\n Star Wars: Galactic Racer isn\u2019t the only title trying to revive combat-focused arcade racers, either. Over the last decade, Three Fields Entertainment sought to recapture Burnout\u2019s destructive racing with games like Dangerous Driving<\/a> and last year\u2019s Wreckreation<\/a>, but limited resources meant the results were mixed.<\/p>\n Despite this, the team is now working on Wreckreation 2<\/a> at its newly rebranded studio, When Tides Turn. While its predecessor\u2019s scope was perhaps too ambitious for the small team, the surprise sequel is taking a back-to-basics approach<\/a>. With a smaller but denser city and a renewed focus on car combat, it\u2019s shaping up to be the Burnout Paradise successor fans have been craving<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Like Fuse Games, the developer\u2019s CEO, Fiona Sperry, also worked on the Burnout and Need for Speed series at Criterion, which she co-founded. \u201cIf you ask somebody what\u2019s a great arcade racing game, they\u2019ll still say Burnout \u2013 despite the last release launching in 2008,\u201d she said during a recent media briefing.<\/p>\n Despite failing to break into the mainstream in recent years, Sperry believes there is still a strong appetite for high-octane arcade racers.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, people have been telling me the audience for arcade racing has gone \u2013 that it disappeared. I don\u2019t believe that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the audience is still there. The big guns of the industry have concentrated on fewer, bigger titles, meaning it perhaps hasn\u2019t had the same focus it once had.<\/p>\n \u201cMany players still return to the old titles because they feel modern arcades have moved away from the sort of intensity, pressure and memorable gameplay that they loved from those old games.\u201d<\/p>\n After years of stagnation, the future looks brighter for arcade racing fans, with an influx of big-budget titles to savour.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n With the recent release of Hot Wheels Infinite Rush<\/a> and the return of recognised IPs like Crazy Taxi<\/a> and Stuntma<\/a>n<\/a> on the horizon alongside Galactic Racer and Wreckreation 2, arcade racing is having a resurgence. At last, it feels like the genre is on the cusp of a mainstream comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a common consensus that the arcade racing scene is dead \u2013 and it\u2019s easy to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-606309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hands-on](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Star-Wars-Galactic-Racer-screenshot-9-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Star](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Star-Wars-Galactic-Racer-screenshot-7-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Star](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Star-Wars-Galactic-Racer-Summer-Game-Fest-screenshot-6-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Wreckreation](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Wreckreation-2-screenshot-2-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Wreckreation](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Wreckreation-2-screenshot-7-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\n