The Star Wars Prequels introduced a slew of new concepts into the world of Star Wars. Exotic worlds, alien creatures, the Sith, the Republic and more all helped further enrich George Lucas' creation. It also introduced racing into the franchise through the Boonta Eve Classic Podracing segment. Fast and furious, the moment captured the hearts and minds of all viewers and yielded a handful of excellent racing games. Post-PS2 era, however, no developer has attempted to recapture the fast and furious nature of racing in Star Wars. Fuse Games aims to change that with Star Wars: Galactic Racer.
Built by a team that includes alumni that worked on Need for Speed and Burnout, Star Wars: Galactic Racer aims to inject speed that's been missing from the IP for so long. Does Star Wars: Galactic Racer recapture the need for speed Episode I's Podracing instilled in us or is this racer as cursed as Ben Quadinaros?
Star Wars: Galactic Racer takes place shortly into the New Republic's reign. As the newly reformed democracy struggles to rebuild, a booming underground has risen, ushering in a new era of speed. Darius Pax, an experienced mechanic, establishes the Galactic League, a place for thrill seekers and viewers alike to enjoy racing. You play as Shade, a lone racer seeking to reclaim his destiny. Standing in his way is Kestar Bool, a nepo baby determined to wrest control of the league from Pax. It's up to Shade to face his rival, take his title as champion and save the league.
The racing genre isn't well known for telling deep stories, so it shouldn't be too surprising Star Wars: Galactic Racer's narrative isn't all that deep. Shade is about as blank slate of a protagonist as you can get, Darius Pax super chummy, and Kestar Bool as sleazy and pompous as needed to make you loathe him. The story does provide an interesting look at Sebulba many years after his loss to Anakin, but that's about as deep as the story gets.
What's here is passable, setting up a reason for why the Galactic League exists, why Shade is entering and the motivation to keep racing. It's perfectly serviceable and doesn't get in the way of what you're really here for: racing.
What sets Galactic Racer's campaign apart from other racing campaigns is how it handles progression. Rather than acquiring faster cars/speeders that you can customize, Galactic Racer operates on a Runs-Based format. Fuse Games' take on the rogue-lite genre, runs-based racing is built around the idea of Galactic Tours split into three story acts. A tour will take players through a branching path of events, environmental factors and upgrades for your vehicle.
Each run begins with you selecting your vehicle type, spending earned Tuning and Kit Points to unlock permanent stat upgrades, cosmetics, and equip parts, and picking a Racer Style that dictates the Traits and Abilities you'll take into the tour. For example, one style may grant you advanced shielding, while another provides an autopilot. During the tour, performing well in races, meeting with NPCs and completing objectives with Sponsors earns you additional upgrades, parts and abilities for your vehicle. A tour ends if you lose all your League Entry Tokens, usually by crashing too many times in an event or failing to place in the Top 3 too many times. Once the tour ends, you lose every upgrade, part and ability earned during the run.
Injecting rogue-lite design into the racing genre is an inspiring idea. Each run makes your vehicle better and different Racing Styles allow for different playstyles. In execution, Star Wars: Galactic Racer doesn't provide the level of variety or sense of progression needed to ward off fatigue. Losing a tour can be soul-crushing and the rewards doled out aren't satisfactory enough. Tuning Points improve your stats, but these marginal gains are a poor trade-off for loss of progress. More frustrating is that since Tuning Points are also required to unlock the other two vehicles, you have to choose between getting some variety or marginally boosting your current ride.
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