Star Wars: Galactic Racer Review – My Favorite Arcade Racer Since Burnout 3

Burnout 3 is my favorite racing game of all time. For me, no other game has conveyed the sense of speed quite like Criterion’s masterpiece, and it’s still, to this day, an unbeatable showcase of raw, exhilarating arcade racing mastery. So when I heard about Star Wars: Galactic Racer from FUSE Games, which includes talent behind that spellbinding racer, I knew I was in for something special. Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a triumph of arcade racing design that fills the Burnout-shaped void I’ve been missing for years.

The Roguelite Formula Actually Works

Let’s get it out of the way: yes, Galactic Racer is a roguelite. But before you frown and roll your eyes, hold on a second and let the game make its case, or let me make it for it. The roguelite elements in Galactic Racer make perfect sense because they capitalize on its setting and racing structure, giving you a real sense of progression through experience, stakes, and failure.

At the start of each Act, you’ll receive a League Token, your entry into the Galactic League. You’ll choose from races, trials, eliminations, and other formats as you progress through the league. You unlock new abilities and upgrades for your racecraft, encounter foes and friends, win and lose, and this constant progression feels genuinely earned rather than slapped on.

You can’t just restart a race because you’re doing poorly. You have to live with your decisions and take failure head-on by being eliminated from the league and starting over, albeit with some permanent upgrades. Knowing that you messed up by being cocky or didn’t pay attention to your Ramjet during a race, only to see your speeder crash into dozens of pieces, has more impact than a race you can keep restarting over and over.

Depending on the upgrades and parts you get, you can tailor each league, and there’s enough decision-making to keep things interesting without ever feeling overbearing. More importantly, the roguelite elements never replace the skill required to actually win races. You can have the most perfect build imaginable and still lose if you aren’t taking corners properly, managing your Afterburner, pushing the Ramjet to its limit, or taking out other opponents.

You can strip away the roguelite campaign elements entirely, and the fundamentals remain strong, well-designed, and important. Takedowns, drifting, perfect landings, all the good stuff is here, and it’s better than ever. Strip everything else away, and Galactic Racer is still a damn good arcade racer.

The controls are solid, the racing is exhilarating, and the tracks are beautiful and varied. Galactic Racer understands that arcade racing works best when you’re constantly doing something. You’re drifting through corners, threading shortcuts, smashing into opponents, managing your boosts, and trying to stay alive while the track itself attempts to kill you.

I especially like the Ramjet mechanic, an additional boost system that lets you push your vehicle beyond the Afterburner. However, it comes with a redline that’ll explode if you don’t keep an eye on it. You want to let go just as it hits the 99% mark, then promptly boost again using the regular Afterburner. It’s a simple mechanic, but one that rewards you for pushing the system right to its limit.

There are also environmental hazards unique to each planet that keep you on your toes. Lava, acid, frost, spikes; everything can and will kill you if you aren’t cautious. Getting wrecked during a race can easily mean defeat, especially in the later races when everyone on the track is out for blood.

Playing recklessly can also lead to acquired parts being damaged, which in turn has a negative effect on your vehicle. This feeds into the roguelite system again because instead of buying an upgrade, you’ll sometimes have to spend your credits on repairs. It’s such a fun little system. It’s simple, but it forces you to become a better racer, so you have more money for upgrades.

Side bets can also happen before races, adding a fun risk-and-reward system that feels perfect for the Star Wars setting and its racing culture. You’re racing first, and everything else exists to make those races more meaningful. That’s also why Galactic Racer’s track design works so well.

Speed, Destruction, and the Burnout DNA

This game looks and sounds like a dream. One of Burnout’s biggest strengths, outside its incredible racing mechanics, is its ability to convey speed and velocity like almost nothing else, and Galactic Racer is cut from the same design cloth. Every vehicle feels fast, smashes into the environment and other vehicles with ridiculous intensity, and the tracks are massive and gorgeous. They give you enough room to convey that speed without ever slowing you down. You’ll only slow down if you didn’t make the right turn, corner, or shortcut. The tracks will never have a cut so sharp that it can’t be drifted.

It’s a testament to a design philosophy that demands you play at a high level and embrace a frantic pace that would be completely out of place in another racing game. Even at ridiculous speeds, you always feel like you have control of the vehicle. When you make a mistake, it’s usually because you made the wrong decision, not because the game made you take an impossible turn.

A Star Wars Racer Through and Through

And then there’s Star Wars itself. I forgot to mention that this game, just like Zero Company from earlier this year, is incredibly faithful to the setting. The speeders, characters, dialogue, music, camera transitions, overview shots of planets, politics, fashion, and planets themselves; everything feels authentic, lived-in, era-appropriate, and engrossing.

The campaign has a small cast of characters, and while there’s an active narrative with plenty of personal stakes for our main character, Shade, it never disrupts the action or the racing. The big baddie also happens to be an excellent racer, which makes the setup of climbing through the league and working your way through the ranks feel like the perfect fit. Chatting with other racers, vendors, and the league’s patron, Darius Pax, himself is exactly the kind of pre-race downtime you need before you’re back on the track. The game understands that these quieter moments make the racing feel more significant rather than simply getting in the way of it.

Galactic Racer doesn’t feel like a generic racing game with Star Wars slapped over it. The music, characters, vehicles, environments, and even the way the game moves between scenes all feel like they belong in this particular corner of the Star Wars universe.

So, what’s the catch?

I’ll be honest: I don’t think there is much of one. It’s an Unreal Engine 5 game that, at least during my races, doesn’t suffer from the stuttering issues that plague so many UE5 releases. It looks fantastic and has enough content to last you a while. It’s designed with replayability in mind; the multiplayer is incredibly fun, and the arcade and scenario modes are also a blast.

However, it’s my job to be a bit objective where it counts, so let’s take the Burnout fanboy gloves off for a second. I’m very sad that this doesn’t have any form of local multiplayer. I would’ve loved to play it with my friends in some form of split-screen, because this is the perfect game for some local multiplayer chaos.

Additionally, multiplayer supports 12-player races, but the current friends party size is just three players. The developers are increasing that to six, but come on, let me create private lobbies and invite more people. I’ve begged my friends to buy this game. I don’t want to schedule sessions because the party size is so small. Oh, and you can’t rebind controls either, which is a huge misstep, especially for people who want to play this on a keyboard.

These are problems that can be addressed, and someone reading this in a few months might think I’m being nitpicky. But as it stands, these problems keep Star Wars: Galactic Racer from perfection.

Verdict

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is an absolute triumph of arcade racing, and I genuinely didn’t expect to love it this much. It captures the impossible speed and raw aggression that made Burnout 3 so special, while still feeling like its own game. The roguelite structure works surprisingly well, giving every race meaningful stakes without compromising the skill-based racing at its core. A few multiplayer limitations and the lack of control rebinding hold it back from perfection, but they’re minor blemishes on an otherwise fantastic package. Galactic Racer is an easy recommendation and the closest any game has come to filling the Burnout 3-shaped hole in my life.