As you’re probably aware, the plot revolves around participating in the Galactic League as the mysterious Shade, seeking revenge. How you’ll get there is completely up to you, as Game Informer’s latest gameplay highlights a Slay the Spire-style branching map to traverse. It allows for choosing which event types to tackle, be it a traditional race against 12 competitors or a Field Test where you need to beat the clock with an experimental vehicle.

Progressing further opens up new locations and rewards, including an Upgrade Pack, Kit Points, Credits, and a Part Pack. You can upgrade the cornering, improve Resilience for better shields, and so on. Some upgrades may even offer exceptional benefits with a twist – like Overcharged Systems, where a System Malfunction can Overcharge your vehicle for ten seconds. Of course, some races won’t offer anything if you don’t hit first place, so beware.

It’s all very compelling and adds even more replay value than expected, especially when trying out different kinds of vehicles or trying unique builds. Star Wars: Galactic Racer arrives on October 6th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and we can’t wait to dive into everything it has to offer.

Much of the trailer, however, is dedicated to showing the shady underbelly of the sport, with many villainous characters telling the protagonist that they should stay out of their way. These moments are punctuated with gameplay footage showing off some more fast-paced racing, including quite a few scenes of pod racing.

Studio founder and CEO Matt Webster had revealed back in February that there are no plans to heavily monetize Star Wars: Galactic Racer. In an interview, he referred to the title as a “premium release” that will feature a campaign, an arcade mode, and multiplayer modes. Creative director Kieran Crimmins went on to note that making sure Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a premium release is the mindset of Fuse Games as a whole.

“Our mindset right now is a premium release, to try and get an amazing experience out of the box,” he said. “Obviously, we wouldn’t close the door to doing something later, but that isn’t what we are really thinking about right now. We just want it to be the very best game it can be, and we want it to be complete when it comes out.”

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 6th.

If you’re preparing to race on your PC, you’re going to be delighted to know that NVIDIA has announced the game’s compatibility with a host of its features. That includes DLSS 4.5 and, by extension, its Multi-Frame Generation tech (Ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution are also on board). If your PC is on the beefier side of the spectrum, those races are going to have a lot going on, and a lot to gawk at as the tracks speed by.

If you’ve been living on a rock or perhaps visiting a galaxy far, far away, this one puts you in the shoes of Shade, who carries a large chip on his shoulder that’s somehow connected to Kestar Bool, who’s sitting pretty at the top of the League. How he got there is anybody’s guess, but you’re going to have to bring your best racing skills and sharpest reflexes to each race if you want to get a shot at dethroning the reigning champion.

Of course, Arcade Mode and Scenario Mode are going to be a part of it if you’d like to take things at a more relaxed pace, and perhaps bask in the sights that DLSS is going to work its magic on when the game hits its October 6th release date.

Since Galactic Racer won’t feature a Season Pass, the Deluxe Edition instead includes three Repulsorcrafts – the Kor Sarun: Darc X landspeeder, the Kor Sarun: Ciza T speeder bike, and the Kor Sarun: Rak S skim speeder. You also get a Deluxe Livery Pack to decorate your vehicles with unique designs and a Deluxe Player Banner Pack with an exclusive insignia and background.

It also provides access to three “unique” Arcade events, which we’re yet to learn about. On top of all this, you get a digital art book with new art for the various characters, locations, and vehicles appearing in the game. And those who pick up the physical version also net a Steelcase with a sleeve.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Star Wars without other physical merchandise, hence the $159.99 Collector’s Edition. It features the Deluxe Edition upgrade, Steelcase with a custom cover, and a physical version of the art book alongside two pilot patches, a physical banner for Galactic League champion (and story nemesis) Kestar Bool, and a physical Kor Sarun: Darc X landspeeder model.

That by itself wouldn’t be incriminating enough, but the Deluxe Edition contents were also accidentally posted. It includes a pre-order banner and livery, three exclusive Repulsorcraft, a Deluxe player banner and livery (different for each platform), and three unique “Arcade Events.” And as the developer promised, no Season Pass. There’s also a Steelbook and sleeve to go with the previously announced physical version.

Naturally, the publisher was quick to remove these details from Steam, but there you have it. You would probably think a reveal is inbound in June at Summer Game Fest, but it could be even earlier, specifically Star Wars Day on May 4th. Perhaps we’ll see more details for Star Wars Zero Company and the reveal of the long-awaited third entry in the Star Wars Jedi series.

You probably shouldn’t hold out hope for Star Wars Eclipse, however, especially with recent rumors about how it’s still “years off from completion” (and could potentially lose funding from NetEase Games).

“We at Secret Mode are delighted to announce Plaion as our trusted physical distribution partner to help deliver global success on our recently announced game, Star Wars: Galactic Racer,” said Secret Mode publishing commercial director Alison Fraser in a statement. “We have full confidence in their experience and expertise and look forward to working together to bring this exhilarating racing game to both new and long-standing fans of the beloved franchise.”

“We are delighted to partner with Secret Mode to bring Star Wars: Galactic Racer to the global physical market,” said PLAION Partners CEO Craig McNicol. “Securing the mandate for worldwide physical distribution of such an exciting title underscores the strength of our retail relationships, our expert teams around the world and our extensive experience within the physical games space. We are committed to delivering top-tier products to players everywhere and look forward to a strong global launch.”

While this essentially guarantees a physical release for Star Wars: Galactic Racer, more details about whether we can expect more expensive Deluxe editions, or whether the standard editions will come with any physical goodies haven’t yet been revealed.

PLAION is no stranger to working on physical releases. The company had confirmed all the way back in August 2025 that it was partnering up with Pearl Abyss for a similar release of upcoming open-world action game Crimson Desert.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer was announced back in December, and is currently in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The title was unveiled with a trailer that, unfortunately, didn’t really showcase any actual gameplay. The studio behind it, Fuse Games, is known for its pedigree in the racing genre, with many of its developers having previously worked on titles across the Burnout and Need for Speed franchises.

February saw the release of another trailer, giving us a look at the high-speed, high-stakes action-packed racing gameplay. The main story of the title will revolve around taking part in an unsanctioned racing league in the Outer Rim, referred to as the Galactic League. The league is dominated by Kestar Bool when you first get there, thanks in large part to his connections with the seedy underworld, as well as his own use of underhanded tactics. The player, in the role of lone racer Shade, will take on Bool throughout the campaign.

Creative director Kieran Crimmins has spoken about the gameplay features of Star Wars: Galactic Racer, and how the studio had a focus on making sure that the crashes feel just as fun and destructive here as they did in the classic Burnout games.

Studio CEO Matt Webster has also recently confirmed that Star Wars: Galactic Racer “is a premium release,” and as such, will not feature a season pass. “We have our campaign, and we have arcade mode, and we have multiplayer, and it’s a self-contained thing,” he said.

“No. This is a premium release, right?” said studio founder and CEO Matt Webster to IGN in a recent interview. “We have our campaign, and we have arcade mode, and we have multiplayer, and it’s a self-contained thing.”

Of course, this is still Star Wars – a franchise that’s constantly growing with new media and additions. So, Webster says the team can recognize “that the landscape of Star Wars evolves and changes over time, and so do games as they go. So we see an opportunity for us to tap into more Star Wars or new Star Wars over time, but in terms of us outlining what we think post-launch is going to look like, that’s not something that we see. The only reason I say a blind no to it is, in my head, season pass is connected to free-to-play games, and that’s not what we are making.”

Creative director Kieran Crimmins agrees. “Our mindset right now is a premium release, to try and get an amazing experience out of the box. Obviously, we wouldn’t close the door to doing something later, but that isn’t what we are really thinking about right now. We just want it to be the very best game it can be, and we want it to be complete when it comes out.”

Interestingly, the sentiment of providing a premium release echoes Pearl Abyss with Crimson Desert. Despite offering pre-order bonuses, marketing and strategic planning expert Will Powers affirmed that there’s no cash shop for cosmetics or such because, “This is a premium experience.”

As for Star Wars: Galactic Racer, it’s coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC this year. Focusing on the mysterious racer Shade, the story follows their journey through the Galactic League in an attempt to unseat Kestar Bool. Players can select multiple vehicle types and build them out to their liking with tracks spanning planets such as Ando Prime, Jakku and Sentinel One.

It’s not an open world, however – Fuse Games is keen to deliver something “high consequence, high action, high replayability” to create “player stories that you wouldn’t have seen in other games.” With no season pass, it should be interesting to see how Fuse Games pursues additional content.

“Fuse was made with a combination of people who have worked together for a fairly long time, there’s things we’ve loved in Arcade racing – visceral high-octane action and want to bring that to this game,” said Crimmins. “Those sensibilities and some of that DNA from previous games we’ve worked on, obviously that’s in this game because we want to bring that stuff. It’s the core of pick-up-and-play arcade racing with great depth, but also great thrill. There’s also certain game mechanics that are part of our DNA in there as well.”

Lucasfilm Games executive producer Craig Derrick also chimed in to talk about the “spectacular crashes” that players will get to be part of, cause, or avoid in Star Wars: Galactic Racer. “I’d jump in to say it’s high thrill, but also high risk! The spectacular crashes in Galactic Racer, there’s elements of that you see in the Burnout series and other racing games, but also the Pod Racing sequence in Star Wars Episode One,” he said.

“The fragility of these vehicles in this game, the scrappiness we’re implying in this era… They’re really just put together for racing, sort of inherently dangerous to race and in a place where crashes are gonna happen. We want to be able to show that! Cinematically in a fun way, but also lean into the arcade elements while emphasizing this is a dangerous sport you’re engaging in.”

Crimmins went on to note that these crashes will go on to form an important part of the Star Wars: Galactic Racer fantasy. This is thanks in large part to the dangers of this high-speed racing already having been showcased through Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and other films also featuring vehicle chases that often end up with several explosions. In gameplay terms, he also spoke about how these dangerous races come together to form their own stories.

“There’s a few different things from a play point-of-view,” Crimmins explained. “Putting our expertise and studio sensibilities into the Star Wars space, it has a rich landscape of vehicle fantasies. Some core pillar racing fantasy, but also as Craig said this used-universe of cobbled together vehicles. All those flavourings are key to that Star Wars vehicle fantasy.”

“So while we have our own studio sensibilities, we looked to our partners at Lucas to make sure we translate those into an authentic Star Wars experience. That means having high-octane visceral action with risk / reward mechanics, but also a breadth of experiences you can have in the game. Telling a story, you’ve got characters and a running storyline that feels like a Star Wars journey you’re going on. It’s why we’ve worked so closely with Lucas, so you get that Star Wars magic.”

Derrick also pointed out that Star Wars: Galactic Racer will focus on a smaller-scale story rather than the traditional epic space operas that the overarching franchise is known for. Thanks to this, the focus of the narrative is more about the competitiveness between the various characters.

“And it’s not galactic-wide stakes, it’s a local story,” he said. “There are stakes to each of these characters, they have agendas and reasons for why they’re doing what they’re doing. But it’s less life or death and more win or lose. So it’s strongly linked to the competitiveness of the story. The last thing I’ll say about authenticity is it’s all about aesthetics. It has to look like Star Wars. It has to read familiar as racing in that universe, and it’s also the sounds. The music, the engines and these vehicles crunching and hitting each other that’s grounded in some authenticity.”

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S later this year. For more details, check out why the studio decided to avoid an open-world structure, and also take a look at its first gameplay trailer.

However, it’s developed by Fuse Games, comprised of former Criterion developers with no shortage of experience on open-world titles such as Burnout. Even with the popularity of the genre in the racing space (see: Forza Horizon), it opted for a more track-focused approach because it not only fit the Star Wars universe but offered that “replayability loop that expands over time.”

“The reason we’re a track-based racer is because we wanted to have that replayability loop that expands over time,” said creative director Kieran Crimmins to IGN. “All those benefits people learn in the tracks, the more they play, learning the handling, that familiarity getting them better rather than just a massive smorgasbord of a thing, which is a slightly different kind of ‘play with the toys’ experience.

“This is high consequence, high action, high replayability and something that creates player stories that you wouldn’t have seen in other games. And I don’t think we could do that if we would go in and say, okay, we’re also going to do this open world thing. That’s a whole set of different challenges.”

Studio CEO and founder Matt Webster agreed. “You can also say, well, this is the Galactic League, right? This is sport, and we’ve seen racing as an activity and as a sport in Star Wars has been around in many forms, right? Episode 1’s podracing we all know and love, Bad Batch’s riot racing in Season 2 was just awesome. Star Wars Resistance has got the Aces and low-altitude starfighter racing. Racing as a sport and activity is something that’s inside Star Wars, and tracks lend themselves to that really well at an action level. And the other thing we realize more broadly is we are inside Star Wars. And Star Wars fans crave the characters and a story.

“So we wanted to go there as well, in a way that frames the racing action. So, you play as a character who is racing, as opposed to it being a racing game. We’ve made plenty of racing games where you’re just a faceless silhouette in a car. Now you’re inhabiting Shade, you’re a canonical new Star Wars character. You walk down one of the shots in the trailer, you’re walking down the ramp of your starship, you’re going into a paddock.

“And this is a really interesting addition here where the paddock gives us a place, a low-intensity space where we can get up close with our Star Wars stuff, we can move a narrative on, we can see characters inside there. It gives us a low-intensity space as a counterpoint and a contrast to the super high-intensity racing. And I think it’s a really important distinction for us now as we call this a racing adventure.”

Regarding Shade, they’re hired by the Galactic League’s founder, Darius Pax, to help take down Kestar Bool, the current frontrunner (and general no-good scum). Interestingly, they also have an axe to grind against Bool, the reasons we’ll likely find out over the course of the campaign.

As for the tracks that players will race on, they include locations like Sentinel One, Ando Prime and Jakku. While you can choose from different classes, there’s also a heavy emphasis on modifying your vehicle and making it your own.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer launches later this year for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Check out the first gameplay trailer here.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer will revolve around an unsanctioned racing league in the Outer Rim, dubbed the Galactic League. At the start of the game, the Galactic League is dominated by Kestar Bool thanks to his underworld connections and underhanded tactics. The player takes on the role of Shade – a lone racer with a grudge against the Bool family – to take on Kestar.

The developers have noted that Star Wars: Galactic Racer will feature an “immersive campaign” that offers several branching paths that will allow players to unlock new parts, tools and upgrades. The vehicles will also be available in a number of different forms, from skim speeders and speeder bikes to the classical Phantom Menace-styled podracers.

On the multiplayer front, it will feature support for up to 12 racers in a single event across multiple game modes. For players that want to jump into the action quickly, there will also be an Arcade mode that focuses on time trials and precision driving, as well as a Scenarios mode that presents unique race conditions.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S later this year. In the meantime, check out its announcement trailer from back in December.