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0:00This video sponsor, Surf Shark, offers an all-in-one tool to help strengthen your online privacy and security. Get an extra four months when you sign up using offer code skill up. But check out more details after the video. Star Wars Galactic Racer is not a little bit good. This isn't like, ah, yeah, it's a good time. You should grab it if you like
0:15Star Wars. No, this is not that. This is exceptionally good. This is a genuine instant classic that I think is going to make people really happy today, but it's also going to inspire plenty of copycats as other racing games borrow different elements from this in the future. To set the scene, I think you're actually getting five things when you slap down
0:31the cash to buy Star Wars Galactic Racer. And I'm going to rank them in order of least important to most important. Number one, you're getting an extremely well-made, almost feature arcade racer because the absence of split screen multiplayer is a huge bummer in a game like this. That emission aside, you are getting something that looks and sounds
0:48beautiful with vehicles that are fun to drive through smartly designed levels, racing against clever AI, all while experiencing a sense of speed that few games are able to match. Strip out all of the Star Wars stuff and the rogike stuff. Just viewed as a pure racing game. Star Wars Galactic Racer absolutely delivers. Number two, in Star Wars Galactic Racer, you're getting a
1:05spiritual successor to Burnout. You probably already knew this, but developer Fuse is made up of a number of former Criterion developers. And the Burnout DNA is all over this thing. From the sense of speed to the accessible but refined handling to the takedowns and crash cams. Burnout is sadly dead and will not be coming back. Many of the
1:21highs that we got from those incredible games, we're getting them here again in Star Wars Galactic Racer. Number three, Galactic Racer is a wonderfully authentic feeling Star Wars video game that doesn't just use the license as a rapper, it truly interfaces with the source material at every level to design something that simply couldn't exist without this license. You feel it in the
1:38planets, which not only look authentic, but the heat of Jaku will overheat your engines just like the salt of crate will clog them. You see it in the storytelling and the way that pod racing is mythologized and Sabula reluctantly mentors you. Hell, you feel it in the moment to moment gameplay where tactile gameplay systems force you to press
1:53buttons in a way that Star Wars characters do when they're desperately trying to fix their clunky ships and speeders. Just as the Burnout DNA is burned into this thing, so too is the Star Wars DNA to the point where it simply couldn't have existed in the same way without it. Number four, we really are getting a spiritual successor to
2:08Episode 1 Racer here. But more important than that, we're getting something that feels like what it felt to play episode 1 racer for the first time all those years ago. And that's a key distinction because retroinspired throwbacks and spiritual successes are dime a dozen these days, but they often feel like nostalgia bait that can only remind you
2:25of what you felt back then because they typically don't go very far beyond what the original was doing. And so they have this kind of hard ceiling in what they can evoke in you because you've seen and felt most of it before. But Galactic Racer is so innovative across all of its components that you aren't just simmering in the member berry compot.
2:41You are constantly remarking and appreciating all the ways that this new experience moves leagues ahead of what came before it. And finally, number five is that central lynch pin in that evolution, and it's the marriage of roglike mechanics and arcade racing. A formula so obvious that you have to wonder why racing games haven't adopted them as central design pillars long ago.
2:58There's a lot to say about these mechanics, but I think the most important thing they do is that they bring stakes to the arcade formula. And those stakes matter a lot to adults who have spent their lives playing different versions of racing games that never really had any stakes outside of multiplayer. Even Fort Horizon, which is arguably the most popular arcade racer
3:14of the modern era, has absolutely zero stakes when playing solo since you can just hit the rewind button whenever you like. That makes those experiences very accessible, but also less engaging and less rewarding. So, the lack of a doover button here in Galactic Racer and the ratcheting up of stakes as you get deeper and deeper into a league. This
3:30stuff is the secret source that juices the ever living hell out of this video game. Put all this together and you get a generational racing experience. And I mean that. This is one of the best racing games released this console generation. And not only will it stand the test of time the way that Episode 1 racer did, but I think it's going to
3:45provide a muchneeded shot in the arm to the arcade racing formula to the point where I'm going to be really surprised if other flagship racers don't ship with their own version of a rogike powered racing mode in the future. This is just too good to ignore, both for game makers working on their own racing games, but also for you watching this video because
4:03you really, really have to play this. Star Wars Galactic Racer is a very meaty package, far more than you might expect. So, it's probably helpful to describe
4:24what it is first so you know what you're getting. Galactic Racer is an arcade racing game centered on three types of speeders. The land speededer, the speeder bike, and the ski speeder. Though, pod racers do also feature in the game prominently in various ways, but we'll talk more about that later. You do have the ability to customize
4:37your character in some very limited ways. And you can also unlock and customize various vehicle designs, skins, and liveries. It is simple but effective because all the vehicle designs are so distinctive, and splicing them together is actually surprisingly fun. Plus, it's all unlocked through actual gameplay, and there's no cash shop. Love to see it. Galactic Racer has
4:53four distinct game modes: campaign, arcade, scenarios, and multiplayer. The arcade mode is the easiest to describe. It's just simple jump in racing fun. Select an event type, select the map, and race scenario type, and away you go. I suspect people won't be spending too much time here for the simple reason that the other game modes are just way
5:08too much fun. The campaign is the most important part of the package, and it sees you progressing through a three-act story-driven adventure featuring main characters, side characters, heroes, villains, stunning turns of events, all served up through an innovative league structure that sees you hopping from planet to planet and upgrading your vehicle between each round to finesse a
5:24loadout that positions you well for the championship race. It can get repetitive, which we'll come to, but I'm going to say that pushing through to winning that final act three race is probably going to take you somewhere in the vicinity of 20-ish hours or more, depending on your skill and what difficulty you play on. So, that alone
5:37is certainly a very robust offering. [laughter] >> Scenarios see you playing as one of the many characters you'll meet during the game's campaign, and they're like mini campaign adventures where you'll race for five or six rounds, upgrading your vehicle each time. These are really good if you want to get quick access to a specific loadout since each of these
5:56races come pre-baked with certain stats, passives, and abilities. Getting through all of these will take you three to five hours, depending on how you choose to tackle them. Multiplayer is the final game mode, and there's actually a lot in here. The main offering is a condensed version of the roglike loop that the campaign offers. Across five rounds,
6:10you'll be able to refine a loadout that will hopefully see you emerge victorious with wins awarding you experience that contributes to unlocking new racing events and cosmetic customizations. There's also some quick play options in there for both regular racing and pod racing. So, if you feel like jumping in just to blow off some steam, then those options exist as well.
6:29The bigger mission, and honestly, it's a bit of a heartbreaker for a game like this, is local couch co-op. It's straight up not available here, and that's a massive bummer because this entire package feels like a big step forward for arcade races, except for this one thing that feels like a massive step backwards. This game is so good
6:44that it could have been the thing that you played for hours with your partner or your kids or your mates or whoever else. It just begs to be played on the couch the way we played Episode 1 or Mario Kart or Burnout or any of the formative arcade races. It's a real shame and I wonder if it can be added to
6:57the game post launch. And failing that, I hope they're able to add it in a potential sequel. So, outside of that, I think Galactic Racer offers a lot. I've seen more than a few people scoff at the price, which is $60. So, it's not cheap. I'm never going to tell anyone the value of a dollar to them, but I would say
7:11that I'm near 30 hours invested at this point, and to me, that feels like a pretty damn good deal. But what's different about those 30 hours versus other racing games I've played over the years, especially more recent ones, is that I was truly locked in for every single one of those 30 hours. This is a game that demands your focus and
7:29attention to the point where it feels like an hour spent here is the equivalent of like five or 6 hours spent with Forza Horizon 6 or something. This is the arcade racing formula concentrated. And I think that's where the real value is. It's not the number of hours it provides you. It's how much each of those hours asks of you and how
7:46much it gives back in return.
8:07I said at the top that Star Wars Galactic Racer is a brilliantly made racing game that stands on its own two feet separate from its Burnout inspirations or its Star Wars rapper. And you can probably tell that just by looking at it. I mean, doesn't this look cool as Like, look at how awesome these vehicle designs are. Look how
8:21pretty these visuals are. Look how lush and detailed these locations are. Look how fast you are going. How am I staying on the track? I honestly don't know. But god damn it, it feels incredible to be doing this. Point is, you're watching this and you might be wondering, does it actually play as good as it looks? And
8:35the answer is yes. A thousand times yes. In fact, it's better because the people who made this have been making driving games for most of their careers. And you can totally feel their expertise all over this thing. That burnout DNA is 100% here. And you feel it in this speed, which genuinely feels impossible at times. Like there's no way that any
8:50racing game should let me go this fast and get away with it, but Galactic Racer does it repeatedly, especially in the pod races. And yeah, as you would have seen already, takedowns are back. They were a key ingredient of Burnout's greatness, and they're just as important here since takedowns not only fit the Star Wars
9:12racing setting perfectly, but they've also been woven into multiple game systems, providing unique racing events, contract objectives, buildcraft options, energy sustain, and more. You can win this game by building a really fast speed, which you can also win by building an armed wrecking ball that will punish anyone who dares to overtake you, or a vehicle that strategically
9:28uses takedowns as a means of getting more speed because you've stacked parts that reward that play style. But setting all of that aside, it's just incredibly cool to run a fool off the road and watch that camera cut to their exploding wreckage. It absolutely never gets old. >> Idiot. >> Fuse had their expertise to rely on when
9:48they were making Galactic Racer, but they were clearly also very obsessed with creating a racing experience that felt distinctly Star Wars. And that comes through in so many big and small ways. Obviously, you've got these four vehicle types, each with distinct handling, speed profiles, and durability. They also have their own drift maneuver that gives them a lot of
10:03identity in the way they handle. And in the case of the speeder bike, it plays that cool sound effect when you release it and slingshot out of a corner. Predictably, you get a boost that refills automatically, but unpredictably, you get a second boost called a ramjet. And this is where the fun begins. And I promise you that will
10:23not be the only Star Wars line we throw out during this review. The ramjet is a manually toggled boost that provides even more thrust, but it also overheats to the point where you eventually are pushed to the red line. It will keep overheating after that point until you release the throttle. And if you don't release it, you will literally explode.
10:45When I first encountered this mechanic, I was like, "Oh, that's cool." But it wasn't until I began to understand the buildcraft options and the level design flourishes that I understood how clever this system is. Since a big part of Galactic Racer is building towards loadouts let you maximize ramjet uptime or make use of things like water and ice
11:00throughout the levels to cool your ramjets sometimes indefinitely. Then of course there are your activatable abilities like landmines and shields and ion blasters and all the cool you'd expect to find in a Star Wars vehicle game. But it's all very
11:21tightly balanced so the focus stays on the racing. This is not a vehicular combat game. It's a racer that just so happens to have some offensive gadgets in the mix. >> Oh, you'll pay for that. >> But I think the most authentic Star Wars component of this game is also its most subtle. And it's the way that piloting
11:38these speeders is a tactile experience in the same way as it is in the movies. See, Star Wars is all about pressing buttons. There's no voice command computer like in Star Trek or an Iron Man suit. No floating hologram screens you can move with a handwave like Minority Report. Star Wars is a universe comprised of rickety rust buckets that
11:56barely stay together as they move. All of them controlled by a collection of weird and wonderful buttons that must be pressed quickly and in a specific order to ensure that something moves or something doesn't blow up. Remember that scene from episode 1 where Anakin's pod racer broke down mid-ra? That little kid pressed the out of those buttons to
12:11get that pod racer moving again. And I will eat Bitty Blazers goggles if Fuse wasn't inspired by that exact moment when they started making Galactic Razer as a game all about pressing buttons. Hell, you press them before you even start the race to bring your systems online. You press them to engage your ramjet,
12:32which involves clicking the right stick in and then hitting the A button to engage it. You press them when you have a critical system malfunction and need to hit the QTE just right in order to avoid permanent damage to your parts. And you press them when you need to cycle through your abilities on the
12:52D-pad. Weaving system repairs with heat venting with offensive attacks. All while keeping an eye on your red line gauge while traveling at 900 mph. I know it sounds kind of silly to frame it all this way because we press buttons in every game we play. Like that's what playing video games is. But trust me
13:13when I tell you that it's different here. Fuse knew what they were doing when they designed these systems and map these controls. It was a deliberate set of design choices to get you saying that thing that they knew you were going to say anyway. This truly is pod racing. [music]
13:39>> [music] >> 's commitment to Star Wars authenticity is also felt in one of the games most surprising aspects storytelling in a racing game. But in order to fully explain that, I first need to introduce you to someone. WHAT A UNICORN parachub donkey bitty blaze script
13:59tattoo. >> Who's Biddy Blaze? BIDDY BLAZE. >> OH, >> this is Biddy Blaze and he is quite possibly the greatest Star Wars character since Darth Maul. This is a glop shid of such distilled perfection
14:21that we will remember his name forever. I guarantee you that when Disney eventually start making Star Wars movies again, there will be a Biddy Blaze cameo because the people will demand it. Mr. Blaze is just one of the many, many characters you will meet throughout this game's campaign because yeah, there's an actual cast of characters here and you
14:38get to know each of them throughout your journey. Every time you arrive at a new planet, you're dropped into one of these lovely looking hub areas where you can overhear NPC chatter and talk directly to other races who start out very hostile towards you. But as you earn your stripes, they come to begrudgingly respect you, even going so far as to
14:52give you what are called favors, which are integral parts of your starter loadout that determine the sort of passive benefits you get during each run. Best of all, all of these races have distinct personalities that come through both in this hub area, but also on the track with their radio chatter either taunting or cheering you depending on their relationship to you
15:07and on whether or not you've got a side bet going with them on the race outcome. No butter. NO BUTTER. [laughter] NO BUTTER. >> These characters also offer you special boons or challenges during your league. And you can choose to either accept or reject their offer. Here, for example, Bitty Blaze kindly extends you an olive branch after hours of taunting you,
15:24offering you a legendary component as a token of goodwill. Spoiler alert, it was not a token of goodwill. >> Where this story is at its absolute best is when it comes to pod races. When you
15:45start Galactic Racer, you're specifically told that there's no pod racing anymore because it's simply too fast and too dangerous. And I remember thinking to myself, "What the Isn't the entire point of this game pod racing? Do they not get the rights to pod racers from Lucasfilm or something? Now, obviously there is pod racing in this game, but this framing at the start
16:01is important. I'm not going to tell you how it unfolds because I don't want to spoil it, but I will say that the way pod racing is mythologized and scarce throughout this game is a very deliberate and very smart choice that really elevates the stakes as you move further into the game. What I can say is that Sabula is a very big part of this
16:16experience, acting as a sort of wisened mentor who teaches you advanced racing techniques and unlocking new offensive focused abilities since he's all about racing dirty. All of this storytelling and characterization isn't just side dressing. It's a really integral part of
16:37what makes this game so special. It could have been this faceless thing purely focused on the racing and it still would have been great to be honest, but the personality that's been poured into this gives it so much more texture as a singleplayer experience because we're invested in where this story goes and we have bitter rivalries with others. A burnout takedown used to
16:53just be this cool thing that happened. Each one feeling rather indistinguishable from the next. But when I take down Bitty Blaze and I see his wreckage spill out across the track, I think to myself, "Yeah, Scrib doing that
17:17To this point, we haven't talked about the most important part of Galactic Racer, and it's the roglike elements that supercharge every aspect of this. But above all, they bring meaningful stakes to the arcade racing formula in a way that's never quite been done before. Galactic Racer has been called Slay the Spire meets Episode One Racer, and I
17:32think that's a pretty accurate description, actually. The campaign is set across three acts, and each act sees you trying to complete a league. The League map looks like the Slay the Spire map with nodes representing different types of race events as well as special nodes that'll offer you access to rare vendors or proposals from other races or
17:47a variety of other things that you won't see coming. And honestly, 30 hours deep, I'm still discovering new encounters on these nodes that I haven't seen before. Each race awards you a set amount of currency that can be spent at the hub areas, as well as parts and abilities that allow you to shape a particular play style. At the start, the number of
18:01unlocked parts and abilities is fairly small, and I remember thinking that it felt as though these rogueike elements were a little fig leaf, like you could just select whatever, and it really wouldn't make that much of a difference because ultimately it all came down to how fast you were going. But, as I mentioned earlier, when you start to
18:15unlock more and more stuff, and you start understanding how all of these game systems interconnect and complement each other, you realize that there's a surprising amount of depth to all of this and that your choices really do matter when you start stacking passives and abilities that leverage certain keywords like cooled, surge, shield, etc. the more you can leverage yourself
18:31into these statuses and the more reliably you can proc them, that's when you really start racking up wins. But it does take a bit of time to get there. And I would say that Galactic Races roglike meta progression may push some players away who aren't up for a bit of old-fashioned repetition. The game is deliberately designed to see you fail on
18:47the path towards each championship since you lack game knowledge, core stats, and key unlocks in the early game. And so each defeat early on can feel like you're kind of just going through the motions. A new problem emerges in the late game where the Act 3 League map is very, very long and it might give you pause when you consider going for one
19:02more run knowing that it's a solid 45 minutes plus to get through it. Some have said that Galactic Race's limited number of planet locations makes the game feel even more repetitive. And I can certainly see how someone might feel that way, but I personally didn't feel that way. And in particular, the unique mechanics of each planet provided
19:17meaningful gameplay variety. Since being on the ice planet meant that I could go hand with my ramjet, while being on the acid pool's planet meant I needed to focus on tighter, more precise racing lines. Could I have done with a few more planets? Sure, absolutely. But I was happy enough with what we got here. But do I think that Galactic Races suffers
19:31from an overall feeling of repetitiveness owing to its roglike structure? I mean, objectively, the answer has to be yes on some level because that is the nature of rogue lights. from Slay the Spire to Hades to Bellatro and beyond, there's always a sense of going through the motions early on to get to the good stuff later. And I
19:46don't think Galactic Racer is any worse in that regard. Honestly, I think it's better because where something like Slay the Spire or Bellatro are statriven games that aren't at all tactile to play, Galactic Racer is still just a fantastic feeling racing game. So even when my build is simple and I'm early on, I'm still able to just enjoy the
20:03simple pleasure of drifting around a corner or running Bitty Blaze off the track. I will say though that I think there's a deeper, more interesting thing going on in Galactic Racer, and it's how leverage the game is into risk and reward. That's relatively common in Rogue Lights, I would say, since it's possible to choose
20:23the build options that are riskier or harder to utilize, and you get to big upside when it all comes together. But I'd argue that it's much more pronounced and much more important here in Galactic Racer cuz you can go an entire league run and have like first place on every node and the perfect build. But if you
20:37get distracted for a single second at the wrong moment, your entire run can instantly collapse in a heap. This is a game that moves incredibly fast. And it's not easy to keep your speeder on the track, but you must go as fast as possible all the time, and you must keep it on the track because if you don't,
20:52everything you've worked towards can be gone in an instant. Nice one. >> There are ways to mitigate this risk with certain favors that give you additional league tokens, which are kind of like extra lives or allow for more crashes per run. But you're giving up a lot to get these, and that trade-off can make winning a lot harder. But even if
21:12you do build the safest, most risk averse build possible, you're still constantly pushing yourself into the red risk zone as often as possible. Literally, that red line ramjet mechanic is almost like a metaphor for the entire game. How hard are you willing to push yourself and your speeder in pursuit of a podium spot? And even off the track,
21:29the game is still offering you more and more risk. Contracts from cartels set generous challenges that'll give you generous upside if you complete them, but punishing debuffs if you fail. NPCs will proposition you with discounted parts in exchange for more expensive abilities. Vendors will sell you faulty components that offer huge benefits if you can put up with their debuffs. And
21:46to cap it all off, every single race offers you the chance to place a bet against a specific racer, offering a generous prize pool should you win, but commensurately sizable losses should you lose. >> This will be fun. >> It is right to say that the roglike elements are what makes Star Wars Galactic Races so special, but they
22:04alone do not do the job. The build decisions you make are almost all universally additive to your power. You get more stats, more passives, more abilities. Build choices simply make you stronger. And after that, every second of the game is asking you, how much are you willing to risk all of that power that you've accumulated? Will you choose
22:22the safer field test event type or the riskier but more rewarding elimination event type? Do you want to accept that smuggled parts offer from a fellow racer knowing that it could lead to you getting a faulty part? Do you want to take that shortcut on the track knowing that the turn is much trickier to take at high speed? And ultimately, how fast
22:38are you willing to go and for how long? knowing full well that every second at max speed could be the last second of your league run. This is what makes Galactic Racer so special and it's a formula that arrives at a perfect moment because it feels like arcade racers have just been kind of spinning their wheels for the past few console generations.
22:54Like we had an era where arcade racers were everywhere and they were bringing cool new things to the table all the time. Wipeout was this visual and auditory masterpiece of futuristic design and speed. Mario Kart went 3D and never looked back, delivering increasingly ambitious track design with each new entry. Episode 1 Racer perfectly captured the pod racing
23:11experience we saw on the silver screen. Burnout introduced us to takedowns and crash cam. Gotham Racing introduced us to style points. Need for Speed Hot Pursuit saw us playing Cops and Robbers. And Need for Speed Underground. Bro, don't even get me started on what a revelation that game was. Everything I just listed, by the way, came out over
23:27the span of like 10 years. And think how little this last 10 years has delivered in terms of arcade racing innovation. Many of the franchises I've just listed are dead now. Mario Kart went open world in its most recent entry and it felt like a big missed opportunity. Forts of Horizon is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but it feels like it hasn't
23:43really evolved since forts of Horizon 3 back in 2016. The Hot Wheels games are also really wellm made, but are pretty straightforward in most regards. Point is, this has been a bit of a lost generation for arcade racer innovation, and Galactic Racer is anything but conventional, anything but familiar. It has shot straight off the starting line to become one of the best, most
24:01innovative, most feature- packed, and most rewarding arcade races released in the last decade. And I'm sure we will see a sequel, but I'm even more sure that we're going to see many, many games following in its footsteps in the years to come. Because you don't get to be this good without making big waves, and you can scribune that, too.
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