When I first played Star Wars: Galactic Racer at Summer Game Fest, I described it as Burnout in a galaxy far, far away. After spending considerably more time with the finished game thanks to an early PS5 code from the developer, that comparison remains accurate. However, I'd also argue it undersells how much Fuse Games has built around that wonderful foundation.

Galactic Racer is fast, aggressive, mechanically deep, and immediately satisfying. It channels the barely controlled chaos of Burnout while understanding what makes racing in the Star Wars universe different from simply placing futuristic cars on alien planets. The vehicles sound unstable, every collision feels dangerous, and tracks are filled with the kind of enormous machinery, wrecked spacecraft, hostile terrain, and narrow passages that make speed feel genuinely irresponsible.

That sense of speed is the game’s greatest achievement. Holding down the Ramjet and watching the environment collapse into a blur creates a constant tension between squeezing out a few more seconds of acceleration and realizing that I may no longer be capable of reacting to whatever appears ahead. Successfully threading through a narrow tunnel at maximum velocity feels incredible. Misjudging it produces a spectacular slow-motion explosion.

The Burnout influence is clearest when other racers become part of that calculation. Burnout 3 is still the greatest arcade racing game of all-time in my books, but Galactic Racer deserves to be in that conversation.

Vehicles can be slammed into walls, pushed toward obstacles, and destroyed in cinematic takedowns. The game encourages aggression without reducing every race to combat. I still need to understand the course, maintain a clean line, manage boost heat, and choose when the potential reward of attacking someone is worth the risk of wrecking myself.

That philosophy comes naturally to Fuse Games. The studio was founded by former Criterion developers whose credits include Burnout and Need for Speed, along with work supporting DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront games. Creative Director Kieran Crimmins previously explained that the team shares a long-standing understanding of fast, thrilling arcade racing, and that DNA is unmistakable here.

Podracing is where Galactic Racer’s speed becomes almost absurd. Podracers are enormously powerful, fragile, and noticeably less stable than the game’s landspeeders, bikes, and skim speeders. Even after becoming comfortable with the other vehicles, stepping into a podracer feels like graduating to a machine that was never designed with self-preservation in mind.

It is exactly what I wanted from modern podracing. The thunderous engines, sharp turns, hazardous courses, and constant possibility of catastrophic failure capture the fantasy established by The Phantom Menace without simply rebuilding the 1999 Episode I: Racer. Galactic Racer uses that history as one part of a much broader racing culture.

The campaign is arguably an even bigger surprise. Instead of presenting a conventional sequence of championships, Galactic Racer structures progression around runs called Tours. Each Tour offers branching routes through races, eliminators, field tests, character encounters, and other events. Rewards, vehicle parts, upgrades, and temporary abilities gradually turn the selected machine into a specialized build.

Failure consequently carries more weight than it would in a traditional racing campaign. Too many crashes can end a Tour, potentially sacrificing much of the progress made during that run. Persistent unlocks prevent the game from becoming punishingly repetitive, but there is enough risk to make route selection and vehicle development meaningful.

It sounds like an unusual match, yet arcade racing adapts remarkably well to a roguelike structure. Every event becomes part of a larger calculation: take the safer route, pursue the more valuable upgrade, or enter a difficult race that could produce a run-defining reward. The loop of racing, collecting components, refining a build, and pushing deeper into a Tour is extremely addictive.

Fuse says the game contains more than 300 vehicle parts, producing potential combinations numbering in the trillions once parts, upgrades, abilities, vehicle styles, and environmental effects are considered. That breadth does not turn Galactic Racer into an inaccessible simulation. Its handling remains immediate, but there is meaningful depth beneath it for players who want to optimize acceleration, durability, cooling, boosting, offensive abilities, and other characteristics.

The storyline is also better than I expected. Shade’s attempt to rise through the Galactic League and settle a personal score with champion Kestar Bool follows a familiar sports-movie framework, but that simplicity works. Rival racers have recognizable personalities, the paddocks make the circuit feel like a real community, and Kestar is appropriately unbearable.

Fuse deliberately set the game after Return of the Jedi, drawing inspiration from the motorsports boom that followed World War II. Just as experienced pilots returned from that conflict and helped fuel hot-rodding and drag racing cultures, Galactic Racer imagines the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War producing an underground racing scene filled with former pilots, surplus machinery, criminal investment, and spectators searching for a new kind of excitement.

That gives the game an identity beyond recycled Star Wars imagery. Familiar planets, creatures, sounds, and vehicles establish authenticity, but the Galactic League feels like a previously unseen corner of the setting. It tells a relatively grounded Star Wars story where the stakes are personal rather than galactic, and not every problem eventually leads back to the Jedi or Empire.

Galactic Racer is equally impressive technically. Built with Unreal Engine 5, it targets a detailed 4K presentation at 60 FPS on current-generation consoles. The base PS5 version has been widely reported to maintain that target consistently, which is essential for a game moving this quickly. I spent all of my time playing on a PS5 Pro.

There are still some annoyances even amidst all the praise. Some hazards blend into similarly colored terrain, making certain crashes feel less like mistakes and more like failures of visual communication. The AI can also be extremely aggressive, and the roguelike campaign will not appeal equally to players who simply want a traditional series of championships. Arcade and multiplayer options provide alternatives, although a more straightforward Grand Prix mode would have complemented them nicely.

Those complaints have done little to diminish the wider response. Star Wars: Galactic Racer currently holds an 88 Metacritic score on PS5, alongside an 86 on Xbox Series X|S and 82 on PC. The PS5 result makes it the highest-rated Star Wars game since 2003’s Knights of the Old Republic. It has surpassed Star Wars Zero Company at 85, Jedi: Survivor at 85, The Skywalker Saga at 82, Squadrons at 79, and Outlaws at 75. Scores may still move as additional reviews arrive.

That reception feels justified. Galactic Racer succeeds partly because it does not rely on Star Wars alone to carry it. This would still be an excellent arcade racer without the license. Its universe, vehicles, sounds, and podracing heritage elevate an already compelling foundation rather than disguising a shallow one.

Most importantly, it constantly makes me want another race. The speed is exhilarating, the crashes are spectacular, podracing feels better than I hoped, and the campaign turns every victory into fuel for one more run. Fuse Games has not merely revived Star Wars racing after a long absence; it has created a convincing evolution of Burnout’s aggressive arcade formula and one of the best Star Wars games in years.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer launches on October 6, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

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