Star Wars Galactic Racer offers deep upgrades, pod racing

Fuse Games provided a one-hour hands-on demo of Star Wars Galactic Racer at SGF, showing fast, skill-focused racing across large, open-feeling tracks, a campaign with roguelike elements, a wide parts upgrade system and distinct pod racing events. The studio developing the game includes several former senior developers from Criterion.

Kieran Crimmins, creative director at Fuse Games, said the team aimed to reproduce the cinematic scale of Star Wars locations. Tracks are bounded for gameplay, but designers place large landmarks and landscapes on the horizon-such as moon-sized ships and the desert of Jakku-to create the impression of vast environments. “One of the classic kinds of cinematic things is that everything is big; it literally doesn’t fit on the screen. So we just tried to replicate that, really,” he explained.

Racing blends speed, boost mechanics and combat. The demo included multiple boost types, including a kinetic boost available to particular speeder models, and a pre-race quick-time event that grants an immediate boost without waiting for recharge. Contact and takedowns produce distinct sound cues and can be used as part of race strategy. The presentation of crashes and takedowns included elements familiar from arcade-style racing, adjusted for Star Wars vehicle designs and settings.

The campaign departs from a strict ladder of events and introduces roguelike-style decision points. Players move through hub areas in third-person, follow a new Star Wars storyline and select parts and upgrades for their speeder between events. Components modify raw stats, boost performance and chassis durability. Crimmins noted the number of possible equipment combinations is extremely large: “The combinations are in the trillions for different builds.” The studio intends players to change parts for different race types and locations rather than relying on a single dominant setup.

Fuse Games is designing for accessibility alongside depth. The team follows a “pick up and play” approach, aiming for controls that are easy to learn while offering a high skill ceiling. Single-race modes are available for immediate matches, and the campaign requires further tuning and decision-making about parts and handling.

Pod racing is included as a separate, higher-intensity discipline. Crimmins described pod racing as central to the Star Wars racing experience and said it must reflect the film fantasy: “You cannot have a Star Wars racing game without pod racing in it. Pod racing has got to embody the fantasy that’s displayed in those movies.” In the demo, pod events were faster and more intense than standard speeder races.

The team described developing a modern Star Wars racing game as technically demanding, citing the challenge of combining scale, speed and combat while maintaining performance. Fuse Games’ background in arcade racing informed design choices for track scale and vehicle interaction. The demo did not confirm how prominently pod racing will feature within the full campaign.