Ever wondered what happens when you cross Star Wars with Burnout and throw in a roguelite structure for good measure? That's exactly the pitch behind Star Wars: Galactic Racer, and it comes from developer Fuse Games, a studio founded by ex-Criterion devs who worked on Burnout itself, plus helped DICE with the modern Star Wars Battlefront games.
Set in the peacetime gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, the game imagines a full racing culture where crime syndicates back planet-hopping hotshots competing in landspeeders, speeder bikes, and skim speeders across planets that conveniently have one biome each. It's a smart bit of worldbuilding that populates a cast of rivals—including the immediately hateable villain Kestar Bool, an ex-TIE Fighter pilot, and a bunch of rich kids who'd fit right in on a real F1 grid if they weren't blue or speaking Huttese.
If you're expecting Burnout 3 levels of crash-happy chaos, temper that expectation. Takedowns are a much smaller part of Galactic Racer than you'd think. Yes, slamming a rival into a wall triggers a slow-motion takedown camera showing their greebly Star Wars vehicle reduced to scrap, but the CPU isn't great at steering for you during that pan—more than once, you'll come out of a takedown aimed directly at a wall at high speed. This is an actual racing game first, albeit one where a crocodile-faced alien will occasionally rocket into a wall and burst into flames.
Instead, the real meat is in managing two types of boost: a modest afterburner on cooldown, and a faster ramjet that can dangerously overheat if pushed too far. Status effects matter too—Cooled triggers at high speed or over water and lowers your heat, while Burning comes from flame jets or racing over lava and raises it. Overcharged, Corroded, and Shielded can all factor into your build as well.
That build comes together across tours of linked races. You get five-race tours in multiplayer or scenario mode, or three acts in the campaign, which borrows its structure from roguelites. You pick your next event from a node map straight out of FTL or Slay the Spire, earn upgrades as you go, and if you wipe out, it's back to the start of the act—with unlocks making your next attempt easier. One path might favor traditional races, another is heavy on eliminators where you lose a league token (basically a life) if you don't finish top three. Eliminators pay better, so they're tough to skip.
Abilities are a huge part of most builds. Ion bolt scrambles steering for a targeted pilot ahead of you, vent drops your heat to nothing, and concussion mine does exactly what it says on the tin. They're on cooldowns and cost energy from your battery, which is upgradeable. Between events, you spend credits on random improvements and bolt-on parts—one refills your afterburner on collision and pushes you toward tankiness, while another wipes all heat on a perfect landing and lets you go all-in on the ramjet.
Splitting up those events is the paddock, a third-person hangout with a bar and garage you walk through at the start of each planet. Rivals might confront you, racers argue over drinks, or the league organizer checks in on your progress. It's no Hades-style Underworld hub, but it adds a narrative layer and sets the scene between races.
At $60/£50, Galactic Racer is aiming for more than a nostalgia trip. The Burnout DNA is real, but so is the racing challenge underneath it. Will you be picking this one up, or waiting for a sale?
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