Star Wars: Galactic Racer is out now worldwide on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and it arrives with high-80s averages on both major review aggregators. The arcade racer is the debut game from Fuse Games, published by Secret Mode in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, according to the studio’s official launch announcement.
The scores
When RCG checked Tuesday afternoon, Metacritic showed a Metascore of 88 from 65 critic reviews, with 97% positive, two mixed, and none negative. The platform scores sit close together: 88 on PS5 from 67 reviews, 86 on Xbox Series X from 12, and 85 on PC from 20. OpenCritic lists an 87 Top Critic Average, and 96% of critics recommend the game.
Reviews went live October 2, so today’s launch comes after several days of critic coverage, though review counts are still climbing. Metacritic says user reviews open Wednesday, October 7. The game is rated E10+.
What critics are saying
Two of the biggest outlets went especially high. GameSpot gave it a 9/10 and called it “those absolutely perfect 10 minutes expanded into a full game.” Eurogamer went 5/5, describing “both a surprisingly fun Roguelite campaign and a racing treat for Criterion fans.”
IGN landed at 8/10, calling it “a fabulous looking and frantically fast anti-grav racer that gets a little repetitive thanks to its heavy reliance on repeatedly revisiting the same slim selection of planets.” Repetition comes up in several other reviews as well, and IGN also flagged the lack of split-screen. PC Gamer was the lowest of the bunch at 76/100, but it still found the run-based structure “more successful than the open world of Burnout Paradise.”
What the game is
Galactic Racer is a runs-based racer set in the Outer Rim after the Empire’s fall. In the single-player campaign, players race as Shade through the Galactic League, an unsanctioned circuit, with engineer Hibi in their corner and league champion Kestar Bool as the target. Arcade and Scenario events sit alongside the campaign, and online multiplayer offers quick races or full runs-based events.
The launch post lists four classes of repulsorcraft. Landspeeders, speeder bikes, and the new skim speeders race against each other. Podracers run only against other podracers because of their speed and size. Podracers are one class among four rather than the core of the game, and Respec was among the reviewers who wanted “a fully fleshed out Podracing section.”
Amazon describes Fuse as a studio founded by racing veterans whose individual credits include the Burnout and Need for Speed franchises. In the launch post, Fuse co-founder and CEO Matt Webster said: “Three and a half years ago, Fuse Games was a handful of people with a big idea scrawled on a whiteboard. Today we launch our debut game, set in a galaxy far, far away.” He thanked Lucasfilm Games “for trusting a small team with such a legendary galaxy.”
Playing it on Luna
Amazon says Prime members in eligible regions can play the single-player campaign on its Amazon Luna cloud service starting today, the same day as the console and PC release. VGC reports there is no extra charge beyond the Prime subscription.
RCG first flagged the October 6 date in its look at Xbox’s launch-week lineup.
