Now, don’t get me wrong; Tokyo Xtreme Racer isn’t a brand new, fresh IP. Rather, it is a revival of a surprisingly old franchise which has roots all the way back in the 1990s with its first title having come out on the Super NES. While the series has been dormant since PS2 title Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift 2 back in 2005, the franchise is back after having essentially been forgotten about for almost two entire decades.

"The Shuto Expressway that you’ll be racing along has a great variety of curves and sharp turns, along with plenty of straights that you can blaze through, and you’ll rarely have to tough the brakes, even if you see a big turn coming up."

The strangest thing about Tokyo Xtreme Racer is just how old-school it really feels. Now don’t get me wrong; the production values, especially when it comes to visuals and audio are quite great. The game isn’t looking backwards through time for its visual identity either. Rather, everything around these aspects feels decidedly old-school, from the core racing gameplay, to navigation through the menus, and even how the game has been overall structured.

The core racing leans heavily on the arcade style of gameplay. The Shuto Expressway that you’ll be racing along has a great variety of curves and sharp turns, along with plenty of straights that you can blaze through, and you’ll rarely have to tough the brakes, even if you see a big turn coming up. The gameplay is fast, and most importantly, emphasises a sense of speed and rewards quick reflexes in how you dodge traffic throughout your races.

Despite being an arcade-styled racer, Tokyo Xtreme Racer doesn’t shy away from giving players some customisation options, however. Once you get the right kind of upgrades, you get a whole new set of sliders to play around with to further fine tune the performance of your car. For example, getting a new transmission system lets you switch up your gear ratios. Getting a new suspension system, on the other hand, will open up your car’s height adjustment options.

"The entire story mode revolves around you driving around the highways of Tokyo, Japan, taking on any racers you might find along your routes in 1-on-1 sprint races."

The main gimmick powering the gameplay in Tokyo Xtreme Racer is its SP Battle system. The entire story mode revolves around you driving around the highways of Tokyo, Japan, taking on any racers you might find along your routes in 1-on-1 sprint races. These races are also structured differently from other racing games since you’re not exactly trying to get to a finish line before your opponent. Rather, the goal is to get enough distance between you and your opponent that their SP bar – essentially a health bar – drains all the way to zero. If you’re stuck behind your opponent, you will similarly have to catch up before your SP bar drains to zero and you lose the race.

The SP Battle system forms the core foundations of racing in Tokyo Xtreme Racer, since you’re encouraged to keep driving along the highway, regardless if you win or lose, to take on more challengers. Winning a race offers three core rewards: CP that can be spent to buy new cars, part upgrades, and liveries, BP that can be spent on unlocking the chance to get new cars, perks, and passive bonuses like more SP or higher rewards from races, and progression along the main campaign.

Just about the entirety of Tokyo Xtreme Racer takes place on Tokyo’s Shuto Expressway. You start out in your garage, from where you have to pick your targets to race against before you’re then thrown into the world in the appropriate lane of the Shuto Expressway as close as you possibly can be to the nearest target. You then get to drive up to your target, and with a flash of your headlights, you enter a race. Things don’t really get more complicated than that; finishing a race leaves you still riding along the highway unless you hit a story threshold, with the game outright encouraging you to race as long as your tyres will let you, after which you then have to bring an end to that night of racing by going back to your garage.

"The story in Tokyo Xtreme Racer is minimal, but the little bit that is present is quite charming."

Your primary opponents throughout the campaign in Tokyo Xtreme Racer are various racing teams who you must defeat before ultimately ending up in a showdown against that team’s leader. Each team is part of one of three distinct storylines, which each also have their own main boss that triggers progress in the overall story.

Speaking of which, the story in Tokyo Xtreme Racer is minimal, but the little bit that is present is quite charming. It taps into classic Japanese street racing fiction, with the main plot revolving around you taking on progressively tougher racers in a bid to become the best racer along the Shuto Expressway. You aren’t really going to get complex character arcs or deep storylines here. In fact, the story in the game does little more than get in the way of your racing time, since story triggers will instantly pull you off the road and send you back to your garage. There also aren’t really any cutscenes; rather, most of the story is told through static images with dialogue boxes like you would expect from a PSOne title.

There is definitely a fair bit of charm, however, thanks to the melodramatic weight placed on your progress through the various racing teams. After beating a boss, for example, you will often be met with scenes with fancy text-only narration proclaiming things like you being “captured by the mystique of the Shuto Expressway,” or the few characters you meet forming “the light of a soul emitted only by those who tread into the abyss.” This kind of writing, along with characters with names like Happy Chappy, Rolling Guy, Crimson Boy and Cinderella Past Midnight did nothing short of bringing a smile to my face whenever I was playing.

"These early game progression issues are further hurt by the fact that, once you start driving, you can’t really fast travel or switch to the other lane"

However, despite all of this charm and the simple-but-fun racing gameplay, Tokyo Xtreme Racer certainly has its issues. One of these is the main progression system. You can only buy upgrades for your cars once you’ve unlocked the appropriate upgrade in your skill tree, for which you need plenty of BP. You also need to spend BP on other things, like getting some passive abilities like increased health or SP damage. In fact, you can’t even buy new cars unless you unlock them through the skill tree. While this essentially stops being an issue once you hit the late game parts and can get plenty of BP through a single night of racing, it’s certainly a major pain in the early game where you’ll often be starved for BP just because there aren’t that many racers to challenge in a single night.

These early game progression issues are further hurt by the fact that, once you start driving, you can’t really fast travel or switch to the other lane; you’re stuck going in the direction you picked at the start of the racing night. One instance where this was an obvious problem for me was when I had a single boss fight along one lane of the Shuto Expressway, and a single other race in the other lane, which ultimately necessitated four distinct loading screens before I could wrap those stories up.

On the bright side, Tokyo Xtreme Racer feels like an incredibly well-optimised game. Playing it on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, 32 GB of DDR5-6000 RAM and a Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU at a resolution of 1440p let me hit my desired frame rate limit of 144 FPS quite easily with a little tweaking in the settings screens. While I couldn’t crank the title all the way up to Ultra without giving up too many frames, it still looked great on the High preset while ensuring fast, responsive gameplay thanks to high and stable frame rates.

"Ultimately, you will want to mute the game’s music and set up your own playlist on the side"

The audio side of things are decidedly less impressive. While the vehicles sound great, and Tokyo Xtreme Racer even goes as far as accurately modelling the screeching you’d hear when using the brakes at high speeds on a car that’s mostly using stock parts, and the engines sound great too. However, the music is a bit of a let down. The first few hours are great, since the bass-thumping electronic music with a few bars of metal guitar riffs suit the atmosphere quite well, there just isn’t enough variety in the game. Ultimately, you will want to mute the game’s music and set up your own playlist on the side if you don’t want to go insane from listening to the same EDM track for the thousandth time.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer is a strange title that feels like it was lifted right out of an alternate universe version of 2003 where the PS2 is as powerful as our modern gaming systems are. The high frame rates and visual fidelity certainly match the more modern presentation we see in games today. However, the menus, the gameplay structure, and even the second-to-second driving feels like it belongs in a bygone era where brakes were considered an optional component of a racing game. However, I can’t deny that it’s fun.

The game doesn’t really need you to have been a fan of the long-running franchise, or even to have been aware of its existence. All you really need to enjoy when it comes to having fun with Tokyo Xtreme Racer is fast-paced driving gameplay, a sense of danger, and a love of campy storytelling that wants to praise the grandeur of getting into races along a city’s highway network.

This game was reviewed on PC.

These include new car models and parts for the Skyline 2000GT-R (KPGC10), Nissan GT-R Premium Edition T-Spec (R35), Honda Integra Type R (DC2), Nissan Fairlady Z Version ST (RZ34), and more. There will also be a new story chapter and rivals to challenge, alongside game balance changes and adjustments.

Unfortunately, the Replay Feature has been delayed due to prioritizing more story content. There’s no ETA, but Genki is doing its best to ensure the feature is “polished and ready” in future updates. Meanwhile, Steam Record Ranking won’t be added at all due to “insufficient cheat prevention measures.”

“We believe introducing the feature without being able to provide a fair playing field for all players would negatively impact the player experience.”

Stay tuned for more details on the launch version in the coming weeks. You can also read our early access review of Tokyo Xtreme Racer for our initial thoughts at launch.

Along with Steam achievements, Tokyo Xtreme Racer now also has additional rules that players can enable that allows them to control their cars’ water and oil temperature while they are driving. When these additional rules are enabled, players will have to take care to not let their oil or water overheat. To take some of the stress off, players can also toggle a “safe” mode which limits engine speed, output torque, and other performance-related aspects of the car to make sure that the overheating doesn’t happen.

Playing with these additional rules also comes with some extra rewards rather than just being for players who enjoy the challenge; the reward for defeating rivals is multiplied by 1.5. The additional rules can be enabled through an option in the game’s GARAGE screen.

The overall UI while racing is also seeing some changes. Along with the oil and water temperature gauges above the tachometer, the game now also has an odometer and a tripmeter so that players can track the mileage of their car. The nitro gauge has also been made smaller, and players can now tell if they’re in a slipstream more easily. All of these UI elements can be set to be displayed or hidden through the game’s options menu.

Along with these, Tokyo Xtreme Racer has also added a few more customisability options in the form of new license plate names. For more details about the update, check out the patch notes below. And while you’re at it, also check out our review.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Version 0.13.0 Patch Notes:

UI

The UI layout while driving has been revised with the addition of water and oil temperature gauges.

• Water and oil temperature gauges: Added water and oil temperature gauges above the tachometer. Only visible when Water/Oil Temperature mode is enabled.
• ODO/TRIP meter: In response to requests to be able to check the mileage while driving, an Odometer and a Tripmeter have been added.
• Nitro Gauge: The size on the screen has become smaller, the available amount and effect remain the same.
• Slipstream: The effect of slipstream is now clearly visible.
• Input Value: Added an on-screen indicator that shows the amount of value being sent from the input device.
• CP and BP: You can now check not only your current CP but also your BP.

Team Defeat

• Added a visual to help make it clearer that the rival team has been defeated.

Option

• On OPTION screen, each UI item could choose whether to display or hide during a race.
• The gauge layout has also become selectable.

Race

• Bonus: A bonus has been added when preventing an overtaking attempt by a rival.
• Shift-up Alert: If the gear shift is manual, a warning sound will go off when it is time to upshift.
• Sky Patterns: The background changes randomly to reflect the daily sky patterns. However, there will be no changes to the road surface due to the background weather.

Language

• Added Traditional Chinese character to the language switcher.

Various Adjustments

Various adjustments include:

Rivals

• The positions of your car and rival’s cars at the start of a battle have been revised.
• If you initiate a battle on the course, you will start the battle behind the rival’s car.
• If a rival initiates a battle on the course, the battle will start in front of the rival car.
• If you challenge a battle at PA, the battle will start in line.

Vehicles

• The center of gravity of vehicles with horizontally-opposed engines has been lowered slightly.

Vehicle AI

• Adjusted the rivals to make it harder for them to collide with other vehicles in corners.

PA

• Adjusted the battle start positions of Tatsumi PA and Daikoku PA to be parallel.

Option

• Battle BGM start timing has become selectable.
• Force feedback strength can now be increased up to 5 times.
• Feedback strength changes correspond to each type of feedback.

Fixed

• The following fixes have been made:

Vehicles

• Fixed some bugs with some vehicle models.

Vehicle AI

• Fixed an issue where it was not possible to direct rivals at certain forks in the course.
• Fixed an issue where some Other Cars would hit walls while turning corners.

Rivals

• Fixed an issue where more rivals than intended would appear on the course.

Course

• Fixed some bugs in the course model.

Photo Mode

• Fixed an issue where screenshots taken under certain conditions on Steam Deck were not saved to a folder.
• Fixed a bug that caused sounds to stop playing before and after Photo Mode.
• Other minor bugs have been fixed.

UI

• Fixed minor issues with the DEALER screen.
• Fixed a minor bug on the COLLECTION screen.
• Fixed minor issues with the TUNE screen.
• Fixed a minor bug on the AERO screen.
• Fixed a minor issue with the LIVERY screen.
• Fixed a minor bug on the MAP screen.
• Fixed minor issues with the PERK screen.
• Corrected mistranslated text on some screens.

B.A.D.NAME

• Fixed an issue where some B.A.D.NAMEs could not be acquired.

With the lawsuit, Nintendo claims that it wants to recover “all damages it has sustained as a result of Defendant’s infringement, unfair competition, and false advertising, and that said damages be trebled.” If the company finds a favourable outcome from the lawsuit, Genki will have to destroy all Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 related products it has, as well as stop using the company’s trademarks moving forward.

According to Nintendo, moves by the accessory maker since back in December were “an apparent attempt to further confuse the public as to whether Genki had access to a Nintendo Switch 2 and/or an affiliation with Nintendo.” In its lawsuit, Nintendo has presented a timeline of actions by Genki, referred to as its “wrongdoing”, which include the official X account for Genki responding to a post by GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen, as well as other events, including the company’s presence at CES 2025 back in January.

Another example of Genki’s “wrongdoing”, according to Nintendo, was when CEO Edward Tsai “personally showed off the 3D-printed mockups and stated to different reporters that Genki had or had access to an authentic ‘Switch 2,’ on which Genki based the mockups, renderings, and 3D-printed mockups.” Nintendo has also said in its lawsuit that its lawyers had approached Genki during CES 2025 on the showfloor.

At CES 2025, Genki was present at the showfloor with a host of products that it was planning to launch when the Switch 2 was released. While Nintendo hadn’t yet confirmed the console or its details at the time, Genki had several accessories, including cases for the console itself, and even grips for what would eventually be revealed as the Joy-Con 2 controllers.

Through its accessories, Genki hinted that the Switch 2 was going to be larger than the original Switch. This would eventually be confirmed by Nintendo itself when it officially unveiled the new console towards the end of January. Accessories showcased by Genki also included a charging dock for controllers.

While Genki was believed to have its hands on a prototype of the Switch 2 at the time, the company later confirmed that all of its accessories were based on leaks about the console. In a statement in January, the company confirmed that it had not seen the console at the time, and information it had about the Switch 2 could not be considered 100 percent accurate. “Only Nintendo can tell whether accessories for the Switch will be compatible with the Switch 2,” said Genki.

Nintendo had recently kicked off pre-orders for the Switch 2 across various regions worldwide, and has seen quite a response. In Japan, the company had announced that the lottery system it was using to register people for Switch 2 pre-orders resulted in more than 2 million fans signing up to get their hands on the console at launch. Buyers in the US and Canada reported facing technical issues while trying to place their own pre-orders as well.

“I’ll refrain from commenting on specific sales figures (laughs), but if you ask me whether I consider TXR a hit as Genki’s marketing rep, I’d say that it’s off to a great start,” responded Sato when asked whether studio Genki considered the racing game a hit. “However, I do think there is still room for growth.”

The question came from the fact that, on release, Tokyo Xtreme Racer saw a fair bit of positive attention, and even got around 15,000 concurrent players on Steam. Sato believes that the Tokyo Xtreme Racer franchise name has helped in the latest title’s Early Access success.

“It’s performing well now thanks to the franchise’s popularity, but I think it has potential to do even better,” said Sato about the game’s success. “The reviews we’ve received from players so far have been very positive, so I think we can expect more growth in the future.”

When asked about how many of the Steam wishlists that Tokyo Xtreme Racer ended up on ended up as sales of the game, Sato said that, while the ratio between sales to wishlists was higher than the studio expected, it fell within projections for the studio.

“It turned out almost exactly as I’d calculated,” said Sato. “It was a little higher than anticipated, but mostly within the expected range.”

A revival of classic racing franchise, Tokyo Xtreme Racer was released back in January as an Early Access game on Steam. While it features the same emphasis on speed and making tight corners well as other racing games, what sets Tokyo Xtreme Racer apart from its contemporaries is its SP Battle system.

The system makes use of a numerical value called Spirit Points that measures the willpower of drivers in the game. Making good use of these Spirit Points is one of the aspects players will have to master in their time with Tokyo Xtreme Racer.

For more details on Tokyo Xtreme Racer, check out our Early Access review.

The gameplay in Tokyo Xtreme Racer is extremely straight forward. Featuring a battle system called as “Spirit Battle”, you need to wipe out your opponent’s health by luring them into making a mistake, crash into them or overtake them and extend the lead over a certain distance. Initial races in the game are 1v1 encounters which begin by getting behind your rivals and flashing your headlight. As noted previously, this gameplay mechanic is simple but extremely addictive at the same time.

"Featuring a battle system called as “Spirit Battle”, you need to wipe out your opponent’s health by luring them into making a mistake, crash into them or overtake them and extend the lead over a certain distance."

Taking place in a map which is stretched across 180kms of Shuto Expressway, there are plenty of rivals that you can face-off against, each with varying levels of competence and AI behaviors. This can result into races that can be completed within seconds or some that could last several minutes resulting into a challenging, mouse and cat like experience. You could easily crash into barriers or into ongoing traffic, thereby losing the lead and thereby the match. In fact, your competitor AI can also make the same mistakes and give away the lead to you. It’s this unpredictable system that makes racing in Tokyo Xtreme Racer a blast.

At its core, Tokyo Xtreme Racer is an arcade experience, but it’s backed up by some engaging progression mechanics. As you race and win more duels, you will be awarded with skill points which can be used to unlock more vehicles, garage space, new parts and even improve attack and defense parameters of the vehicle. While most of these addons like unlocking parts or increasing vehicle stats make sense in the context of a racing game, some of the stuff like limiting capacity to earn money behind certain skill barriers is absurd. If you do not upgrade this skill type, you will not be able to earn any more money beyond a certain point. You would need to continuously upgrade that skill type so that you do not lose your race credits. It’s a weird mechanic that makes no sense at all, and I question and wonder about the logic behind such a system.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer also allows you to buy new vehicle parts and even adjust several settings of your vehicle. It’s not as detailed as say something like Gran Turismo 7, but it’s an option for players who want to control some of the finer settings of the vehicles. You can also customize various sections of the vehicles like bumpers and tyres with new cosmetic fittings. Want a cool neon light coming out from all the sides of your vehicle? The game has you covered. All in all, despite being an arcade game, Tokyo Xtreme Racer surprisingly had an in-depth progression and customization mechanic.

"Tokyo Xtreme Racer also allows you to buy new vehicle parts and even adjust several settings of your vehicle."

Tokyo Xtreme Racer also features a story that is told through unvoiced text lines and basic imagery. However, this was one of the least interesting parts of the experience as the game makes no effort in engrossing the player in its plot. It’s so basic that the game would be completely fine without it. Hopefully, more will be revealed about the story in the final version, but as it stands now, I found its inclusion to be quite worthless.

As noted earlier, Tokyo Xtreme Racer features 180 kilometers worth of the Shuto Expressway to race upon. The map is divided into ramps, and they can be unlocked once you pass through them. However, the game implements a rather inconsistent fast travel system. Once you unlock a ramp, you can only fast travel to it by going through the garage. However, when you are on the track, you cannot fast travel to any ramps of your choice. This made mission completion a tedious endeavor as each rival is located in a different area of the map. So, you have to either drive to reach there (mind you, some of the locations are quite far away) or quit and go back to garage and fast travel to nearest ramp.

Another fundamental design flaw is that the game’s map lacks intermediate diversions. Assume that you are on one side of the road and want to make your way on to the opposing side. You have two ways to do this and both of them are tedious. You can go back to garage and fast travel to the nearest ramp or just travel to a diversion that will likely be miles away from your current location. In a racer that is focused on fast and quick action, these weird design choices deter it from reaching its full potential. Hopefully, these obstructions will be removed or redesigned in the final release. In its current, they merely serve to artificially increase the gameplay time.

In its early access release, Tokyo Xtreme Racer features only a handful of soundtracks. They get the job done and jibe well with the action but hopefully the list will be expanded upon with future updates. Visually, the game is going for a unique but a nostalgic art style that is reminiscent of the PlayStation 2 era. After all, not every game has to be a Forza or a Gran Turismo in terms of graphics. The Tokyo Xtreme Racer series has always had its own identity, its own look and feel, and I am glad it sticks to that. The game is also pretty light on PC requirements, and I was able to run at a stable 60fps with every setting maxed out at 4K resolution.

As noted earlier, Tokyo Xtreme Racer’s gameplay is based on draining your opponent’s health bar. However, when cars crash into each other, there is no visual damage indicator. There is no need for complex damage physics like the ones seen in the F1 games, but at least static damage marks and destruction vfx effects should have been implemented. This is a little detail, but something that will make the racing even more immersive.

"In its early access release, Tokyo Xtreme Racer features only a handful of soundtracks."

Tokyo Xtreme Racer, according to the developer, will be in early access for four months, so, hopefully, the team will be able to aforementioned issues through updates. At the time of writing this review, I haven’t been able to find a roadmap for the game, so it’s difficult ascertain what kind of updates are coming in the future.

So, the current state of the early access version of Tokyo Xtreme Racer is largely satisfying. There are a few design issues in terms of map layout, fast travel and locking max currency limit behind multiple skill barriers, but there is a lot to like here. The sense of speed, the visuals and performance, the simple yet addictive gameplay and its adherence to the series’ roots is what makes Tokyo Xtreme Racer standout from the competition.

This early access version of the game was reviewed on PC.