SWGR

For most Star Wars fans, racing begins and ends with Anakin’s famed battle against Sebulba to win his freedom—though if you want to buy cheap PS5 games and experience that podracing thrill yourself, you’ll have to look beyond the films. Behind the scenes – and buried in Star Wars canon – is a robust backstory of all the racing legends who comprise the Galactic League racing scene. If you’re down this Jakku-centric well, prepare to be wowed at the fantastic homage to these galaxy-wide speed demons. You will interact and then some with each of these characters throughout. Disclaimer: I love Star Wars, but I’m not schooled on every rabbit hole this beloved universe can go down. Thus, I’ll deliberately avoid excessive references to canonical aspects as I’m certain I’ll miss something along the way. I don’t want to offend any Master, Padawan, or Sith. Star Wars Galactic Racer is an incredibly robust title, featuring a deep campaign mode, online multiplayer, an expansive arcade option, and smaller single-planet campaigns featuring named racers and their signature vehicles. Campaign mode is where the magic truly happens. In roguelite fashion, a campaign is stretched across four worlds with multiple race branch options. These include traditional racing, time trials, mystery encounters, and elimination (where failing to end in the top three ends your run entirely). I appreciate that Galactic Racer doesn’t punish you for poor finishes in traditional race types or failing to complete time trials or similar test vehicle runs. The punishment occurs via low rewards, which leave a campaign vehicle woefully underpowered for the big finish.

Roguelite Risk-Reward Dynamics

Like any good roguelite, mystery branch options come with omnipresent risk-reward dynamics—much like trying to buy cheap PS4 games, where the lure of a bargain often comes with its own hidden costs and unpredictable payoffs. I once opted to move some money in exchange for better bonuses, only to be caught later in the path by the big bad jackass and have to pay up way more than I would’ve earned. Earlier campaigns culminate in a 1v1 versus Sebulba to qualify for the proper Galactic League Racing Series. Sebulba is no slouch, and he will use every trick in the book to ensure you fail many times over. On that note, Galactic Racer is a very tough game, perhaps the hardest racer I’ve ever played. The AI is merciless and tactful, and it will frequently maximize terrain and exploit your mistakes. With this being said, the game never outright cheats. Mistakes you make will be your own, and when taking out other racers, Galactic Racer will always leave you in a position to recover from said maneuver. This stuff, as is the way of Roguelites, is both dizzyingly complex and utterly simple. Parts, Racer Styles, Favours — they're all good things that might happen to you. And out on the track there are bad things waiting too. If you take damage and fumble the recovery, you lose a part and have to run without that 25 percent boost, say, until you patch it up between planets. Maybe you fall out with a rival in a story encounter and then the next race — there's this wonderful bit where you tap codes to bring each system online early, feels just like flicking overhead switches in an X-Wing — and instead of zipping off, you just explode. You just explode.

Galactic Racer Balances Racing and Loot

Luckily, Galactic Racer never forgets that between the loot and the loadout and the story choices, this is still a racing game. And with that we're back to Burnout — and back to Star Wars, somehow. The game has that ceaseless full-ahead pelt, each corner a set-piece even before you tip your Skim Speeder onto one edge. But different planets don't just have their own looks, they have their own impacts. Icy worlds keep your Ramjet cooler and longer-lasting. Toxic worlds corrode you if you linger too long over lakes of lurid acid. Desert worlds bake you until leaving the Ramjet off feels like the smarter play. Your call. These worlds don't just look beautiful — from Jakku's dunes and wrecked Star Destroyers you thread between, to Crait's white crystalline surface with red dust billowing underneath. They're also carved into fascinating tracks that blend tight underground corridors, where cornering is a constant discussion with death, and daringly wide-open outside sections where I once got so turned around I ended up going backwards. Places that keep shifting how they challenge you. And I suspect better racers than me will spend an awfully long time working out the optimal strategies for each one.

Star Wars Easter Eggs in Racing Game

All of that and it's Star Wars, down to the Droids drifting past in the on-foot sections between races, where you visit the shop and chat to rivals, down to the glimpse of a very familiar targeting computer on the dashboard of a craft I just unlocked. Down even to the wonderful array of English regional accents that suggest dayplayers doing their bits at Elstree Studios. And it's also a lovely suite of racing options — arcade modes, themed mini-tours, multiplayer one-offs, multiplayer micro-campaigns, even a little Pod Racing thrown in. It's new games, with Roguelite choices and endless unlockables, and it's also old games, with cruel and ingenious courses where everything can be lost in an instant. It's a Galaxy Far, Far Away, and it's also Paradise City.