“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.

However, for those worried that Galactic Racer wouldn’t feature one of the more iconic activities from the prequel trilogy, never fear – Fuse Games CEO and co-founder Matt Webster told GamesRadar+ that pod racing is confirmed.

“You can’t really make a Star Wars racing experience and not have Podracing, can you? The core fantasy of the game is becoming an elite racing pilot in the Galactic League, and Podracing is a pinnacle of speed and racing in the Star Wars galaxy.

“However, when we set out to create Galactic Racer, we wanted to do more – to lean into multiple vehicle types and multiple expressions of speed to give players a breadth of experiences. Galactic Racer offers players the ability to pilot vehicles they know and love, alongside ones they won’t have experienced before, across a range of solo and multiplayer modes.”

These include the Landspeeder (which Luke Skywalker piloted in A New Hope on Tatooine) and the Speeder Bike (made famous by the chase in Return of the Jedi on Endor). However, other notable repulsorlift vehicles were spotted in the reveal trailer, and you have to think that Fuse Games has some secrets in store. Regardless of your choice of ride, however, there will be more than one perspective.

“We spend an enormous amount of effort on this camera in particular, as it drives so much of our game feel,” says Webster of the third-person perspective. Others will bring players “closer to the vehicle” for “the sense of speed and, of course, situational awareness that you need when close-in racing.” First-person is also included, though, so don’t worry.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer launches later this year for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. The story focuses on Shade, who joins the Galactic League in the Outer Rim to seek “revenge and glory.” You can customize various kinds of repulsorcraft and participate in PvP matches alongside Story Mode.

If you’re wondering which of the year’s titles are going to have you burning rubber on the tracks as you let loose and push your engines to their limit, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of a few great racing titles that are confirmed, and a few more that might just make an appearance in 2026 and beyond.

1. Forza Horizon 6

The good news is that this one is confirmed for a 2026 release. The bad news is that Playground Games has yet to give us a precise release date for a very ambitious fourteenth addition to the Forza franchise. It takes the action to Tokyo this time around, with some of the city’s iconic locations making an appearance alongside a respectful take on Japanese racing culture being promised.

With Tokyo City shaping up to be the “most complex and intricate drivable space” in the franchise and its largest map ever, this one’s definitely one to watch out for this year.

2. RIDE 6

Milestone Games is all-set to bring adrenaline on two wheels to your gaming systems in February this year, with over 340 different motorcycles for you to climb onto in a game that’s welcoming to both newcomers and veterans. Its Arcade and Pro modes are great ways to take on a Career Mode that’s looking really good.

And speaking of good looks, the visuals on this one are quite impressive, and we can’t wait to see if hitting the circuits on offer feels as real and as good as the real thing.

3. Screamer

This arcade racer is futuristic, fascinating, and just plain old fun from the little snippets of it we’ve been checking out. With a unique control scheme in which you steer with your left stick and drift with your right, coupled with an anime vibe that’s sure to catch your eye, Screamer takes the best of its past iterations and brings them to an experience that’s poised to take the franchise to the future.

There’s also speed boosts on accurate gear shifts, and even Shields and abilities that let you take other racers out of the equation entirely. We’re already drooling at the thought!

4. Gear.Club Unlimited 3 (Switch 2)

With a global fleet of over 40 fully customizable cars, and a Highway Rush mode alongside a story mode that takes you across France and Japan, the Switch 2 debut of this one is sure to give you and your buddies a solid reason to get together for more than a few game nights.

As a timed exclusive on the Switch 2, this one is sure to find a few takers when it releases later this year and eventually makes its way to other platforms later down the line.

5. Tokyo Xtreme Racer (PS5)

We were quite impressed with Genki’s revival of this classic arcade-style racer when it was released for the PC last year. It brought great visual and audio design to an experience that was both fresh and familiar, thanks to its faithful recreation of what put Tokyo Xtreme Racer on the map in the first place.

And now you get to weave in and out of traffic on the PS5, the Shuto Expressway being the stage for some very nerve-wracking racing action that rewards speed and reflexes in a way that makes this one a very satisfying racer.

6. Star Wars: Galactic Racer

If racing around in fancy vehicles in a galaxy that’s both immediately recognizable and yet far, far, away sounds like your thing, this arcade racer is sure to have caught your attention when it was announced at TGS 2025.

With different vehicle classes that vary in terms of their physics, a single-player campaign and multiplayer options, this is definitely a racer you want to try for yourself when it comes out later this year.

7. LANESPLIT

If you’re looking for a plug-and-play experience in which you just hop on your bike and speed away as you weave between vehicles in traffic, this one’s for you. Sure, it may not be the most polished one on this list, but it more than makes up for that with its simplicity.

While the early access demo didn’t have too much of a roster of bikes for us to choose from, the full release, due later this year, comes with a respectable amount of options to use in its no-frills gameplay loop.

8. Super Woden: Rally Edge

Solid driving mechanics, an excellent career mode, class-specific events, head-to-head races, and so much more make this one of 2026’s most well-rounded racing simulators. There’s even an option for four players to play on a split-screen if you buy it as a way to bring the gang together for some racing fun.

There are a lot of cars and stages for you to choose from, and as far as racing games go, this one is sure to bring you many hours of fun if you give it a shot. While there is room for minor improvements, this one is good enough to make you overlook them, thanks to how well-implemented it is and how engaging it is to play.

9. Assetto Corsa EVO 1.0

This one managed to grab quite a few eyeballs when it dropped on early access in 2025, and with the full release poised to bring a lot of excellent additions to the table, we’re definitely excited to see how it shapes up.

With several game modes, a good selection of cars and tracks, and some excellent physics making each race feel as authentic as it can be, this is a title that purists are going to enjoy to the fullest.

10. Carmageddon: Rogue Shift

Carmageddon is making a return this year, and how! You’re driving around in a literal dystopia, with a zombie apocalypse well underway in this arcade-racing roguelite.

With dynamically adjusting difficulties across procedurally generated stages, a bunch of cars, weapon types, and so much more to discover, this is a fun-filled rampage that’s sure to bring some fond memories of the titles that came before it.

11. Wreckfest 2 1.0

With a revamped visual flavor courtesy of the ROMU Engine and a gameplay loop that’s every bit as destructive as fans of the first title would remember, Wreckfest 2 is going to be one hell of a destructive derby racer when it launches sometime in the near future.

The destruction is all there, as are a lot of options to have some fun behind the wheel of a newly customizable car. This one is sure to have you grinning from ear to ear as you let your intrusive thoughts take the wheel.

12. Endurance Motorsport Series

Realistic driving physics coupled with faithful recreations of tracks from all over the world make this one a simulator worth looking into. Adding more flavor to the mix is the fact that it isn’t just your driving that counts in this one, but in the way you and your team adapt to varying conditions out on the track.

Expect to make some fast decisions while you’re trying to get out ahead of your competition, and for an experience that could be as close to the real thing as it can get.

13. F1 2025 Paid Expansion

There won’t be an F1 26 this year, but F1 25 is getting a paid expansion that’s poised to add a ton of new content to the game while switching up its rules and systems to better align with this year’s Formula One season.

That’s great news made even better by the knowledge that the developers now have more time to focus on what’s shaping up to be a very ambitious title being lined up for the franchise in 2027!

14. Akina

If you can’t seem to let go of your Tokyo Drift obsession, this arcade racer set in the Japanese mountains and countryside is going to catch your fancy. Set for release later this year, this one takes you back to an age of Japanese racing that many enthusiasts look back on quite fondly.

With a world that’s charmingly crafted, and the scope for some sharp turns on the cards, Akina might just be the one to beat if drifting is your thing.

15. CarX Drift Racing Online 2

If you’re thinking about taking a more professional approach to drifting, this one might be the perfect choice for you. Realistic physics coupled with gameplay systems that are tuned to mimic competition rules in the real world, along with single and multiplayer modes for you to take on, make this one a viable alternative to Akina and a more serious contender for the genre’s best titles.

Building on its predecessor’s best features while bringing excellent changes of its own, this one has us eager to try it out when it drops in the first quarter of 2026.

And that’s a wrap on all of the racing titles we’re quite excited to try out in 2026 and beyond! We hope to see you on the track.

With the knowledge of franchises like Burnout and Need for Speed powering the experience, this one’s set in a galaxy where the Empire has fallen, and the Crime Syndicate has created an underground racing circuit in the Outer Rim. With tracks located in places old and new that are spread across the galaxy, along with a single-player campaign, branching paths through each track, and PvP options to offer, this one looks like it could be a lot of fun.

Oh, and let’s not forget that since it’s run-based, crashing your pod could come with some very undesirable consequences. If this title has caught your eye, you’re going to be quite happy to know that it drops sometime in 2026 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.