Star Wars Galactic Racer review: Somehow, Burnout returns in a modern racing classic

We really didn’t know how good we had it when you’d get 10 different racing games every Christmas. The variety, inventiveness, and sheer volume of different racing experiences were once a hallmark of the yearly gaming lineup, but that’s now all but disappeared.

As Burnout, Need for Speed, Midnight Club, Project Gotham Racing, and others fell away, virtually only Forza remains, carrying the flame for a much-loved genre. Now Star Wars: Galactic Racer is here, and it’s a throwback to the glory days of PS2 racing, and one of the best arcade racers in years.

Set in the days following the fall of the Empire, Star Wars: Galactic Racer follows Shade, a mysterious racer who sets out for revenge on the pompous Kestar Boole, a racing superstar and someone you’d love to see crash into a wall at top speed.

The game’s campaign sees Shade competing in a series of events which span across familiar Star Wars planets, before culminating in a championship race.

This is no simple campaign mode, however. The game is run-based, meaning at the start of each session, you’re given a league entry token. If you fail to meet the race objective, your league entry token is lost, and you have to start the whole racing series over again.

This gives the campaign races some real stakes. It’s not utterly brutal – you don’t have to come first absolutely every time, but you certainly have to compete if you’re going to progress the story.

After each race you’ll be given a reward based on your position which you can use to upgrade your ship. This can be a new ability, and increase in stats, or a new part which will make you stronger for the upcoming race.

The loop is essentially winning races to make your ship better, in order to win more races. If you’re on a hot streak, it’s easy to consistently rack up the wins and progress through the game’s campaign at a high clip. As you progress in the campaign, new factors like race sponsors change the way you earn credits.

For example, I was sponsored by The Hutts, which meant that for every second I spent in first place, I’d earn more credits. Other credit bonuses are earned by doing things like using abilities in a race, or taking down your competitors.

Speaking of taking down your competitors, this is where the game’s Burnout lineage is most apparent. Smash into your fellow racer hard enough and they’ll fly into the closest wall and burst into flames. The game even features the classic Burnout camera which shows your pal exploding into tiny pieces while you fly away. This is always satisfying, and adds a level of danger to the races which is amplified by the game’s incredible sense of speed.

You can respawn after you crash or are destroyed, but these are limited, so being careful about who is around you, and making liberal use of your defensive abilities is a must.

This becomes most prominent in race types like Elimination, which sees the player in last place of the race being eliminated after a set amount of time, until only the top two remain. You can be having the race of your life, but one lapse in concentration can see the whole thing fall apart, much like your speeder as it becomes close friends with the wall.

This, tied to the perilous nature of the league entry token, only heightens the stakes. During Career you’re often presented with two different race types to choose from to progress the story. One of these could be an Eliminator, while the other may be a test flight in a pod racer, which won’t end your story run even if you die. However, the rewards from the Eliminator are much higher than that of the test flight, which encourages the player to take the risk, knowing that you could substantially improve your ship.

There are three main types of vehicles – a landspeeder (think Luke’s from Episode 4), a speeder bike (think Endor chase in Episode 6) and the skim speeder, a new vehicle which is being introduced to the Star Wars canon via this game. Each ship can be massively customised from changing the entire body of the ship, to cosmetic elements like the colour and finish of each.

Each of the three has their own advantages and drawbacks, but the game does a very good job at not making them handle exactly the same. I genuinely felt like each ship was substantially different, especially when you further upgrade them through a single-player run.

Pod racing is also in the game, as are some classic pod racers from Episode 1. Pod racing also feels hugely different from standard races, primarily because it’s so much harder than the others. The speed of the pod racers is excitingly jarring, and there’s a steep learning curve compared to the ships you’ll fly in the campaign.

This sense of speed and danger is heightened by the game’s presentation, which is stellar. Sure, it’s a video game cheat code to have the Star Wars sound library and musical cues, but the way they’re used is expert.

When ships fly into caves, the roar of the engines is muted, making it feel claustrophobic. A near-horror game emerges as multiple ships aim for a narrow passage way through a mountain, only for the tension to be broken by emerging into an expansive landscape.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer also looks great, and does a very impressive job at making the tracks readable, even when you’re travelling towards them at unfathomable speeds.

I’d have loved a few more planets to explore, and this is something that will hopefully come with future DLC. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of Star Wars locales to choose from.

My only real drawback is that due to the game being set in a specific point in the Star Wars canon, there isn’t much room for silly cameos from across the series. Sebulba, Dud Bolt and Ben Quadinaros being in the game will pop the irony-poisoned millennials that grew up on the Episode 1 racer N64 and arcade games, but names and faces you’ll recognise are few and far between.

I understand not having Force Ghost Darth Vader in a tiny TIE Fighter in the single-player, but the arcade mode feels ripe to really have fun with the license in a way the game doesn’t quite do currently.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a thrilling throwback to a better time for racing games. It’s thrilling, fun, and genuinely innovative in ways that make it a game not to be missed this year.

Star Wars fans will have an amazing time, but anyone who’s even racing game-adjacent should absolutely consider it. It’s a game from an era that gave us Blur, Split/Second, and the desperately missed Burnout, and it carries on that legacy with pride.