Previews for Star Wars: Galactic Racer have begun circulating online, and by the looks of it, this arcade racer has quite a few genre-defying tricks up its sleeves. That said, the detail that’s hooked me hardest actually comes from a different racing series, one deeply connected to developer Fuse Games’ past. As far as I’m concerned, the single most exciting thing about Star Wars: Galactic Racer is that it resurrects Burnout‘s Takedowns and Eliminator races—and drags the cruel genius of that franchise into a galaxy far, far away with it.
Multiple outlets recently got a hands-on preview of Galactic Racer, and each brought a number of new and exciting features to light, especially for what looked like, until now, a simple (though admittedly gorgeous) Star Wars licensed arcade racer. The game seems to grab inspiration from all over the place, and as a certifiable fan of that genre, certain roguelite elements stood out to me as a surprising high note. Having sat with the details, though, I want to walk through why the stapling Takedowns and the Eliminator to that system is what sold me hardest, as a gamer, and as a die-hard Star Wars guy.
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Fuse Games Brings Burnout 3 to Star Wars: Galactic Racer
For those who may not know, Eliminators are multi-lap races that see whoever sits in last place at the end of each lap cut from the race entirely, lap after lap, until one racer is left standing, and they originally came about in the Burnout franchise, particularly Burnout 3: Takedown. According to IGN’s preview, these races seem to define the shape of Galactic Racer‘s run-based campaign, because much like your traditional roguelite, there’s only one thing between you and continuing through the branching tournament of races scattered across different planets. That one thing is the League Token, and it is required for every event in the campaign.
Players can lose their token and wipe the entire run by earning anything but a steady first in the Eliminator races dotted across the campaign tournament, salvaging only the cosmetic unlocks and ability upgrades they had already banked along the way. And the most common way to slide into that fatal last place? Getting rammed into a wall, via Burnout’s very own Takedowns. Slamming a rival’s repulsorcraft hard enough to wreck it (or getting slammed, for that matter) even triggers a slow-motion crash shot at a camera angle near-identical to the one Criterion popularized two decades back, and just seeing that detail made me a bit giddy.
All-or-Nothing Racing Is Fuse Games’ Comfort Zone
Of course, none of this lineage is coincidental: Fuse Games was founded in 2023 by senior developers straight out of Criterion, the studio that built Burnout in the first place. Fuse CEO Matt Webster even served as an executive producer on Burnout 3: Takedown, the 2004 entry that turned both the Eliminator and the Takedown into franchise cornerstones and rocketed the series into the mainstream. That background makes it a lot clearer why Galactic Racer seems to be gunning it out of the gate toward the genre’s meanest ideas.
Racing in Star Wars Should Be Terrifying
Though I’d seen plenty of footage of crashing speeder-bikes from earlier gameplay, and expected a bit of car combat, I never expected this sort of licensed racing game to even reach for Elimination matches. But even now, I can tell it’ll work beautifully; racing in Star Wars has always been a deadly business—the podrace in The Phantom Menace kills several competitors on-screen, lets Sebulba cheat with gouts of open flame, and turns a single bad line into a canyon wall junkyard. Alongside a deeper roguelite system, with several unique abilities and vehicle-specific race types, and difficulty curves throughout, a mode that can vaporize an hour of progress over an ugly lap is the closest a fan can get to actually being Anakin in that race.
It’s also great that the Eliminator won’t shoulder all the tension by virtue of the mode itself. Tracks on different planets will apparently layer on hazards engineered to end you outright—Lantaana’s magma patches will cook your vehicle if you linger, Ando Prime’s ice will freeze you stiff unless you thread its heating tunnels, and though it’s universal, the Ramjet ability’s boost will simply explode your ride if you hold it past the redline. Alongside the pros and cons of Galactic Racer‘s confirmed vehicles or vehicle types, each of those offers one more way to lose a place at precisely the wrong instant, and in an Eliminator, the whole race qualifies as the wrong instant.
Full Circles and Further Additions to Galactic Racer
There’s a full-circle factor underneath all of this, too, as, according to Traxion’s preview, Webster cited the podracer crashes from The Phantom Menace as a direct reference point for Burnout‘s spectacular wrecks back in the day, describing them as “a great reference point for how to make great-looking, exciting crashes.” Star Wars effectively taught Burnout how to make a wreck feel cinematic, and now Burnout‘s own architects are hauling that aesthetic back home to the scene that sparked it.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)
And practically, the host of other new info from these previews seems to round out this pivotal element pretty well. Before a race even begins, you can nail an ignition-sequence prompt to launch with your afterburner primed or your shield pre-charged, then feather a Mario Kart-style throttle meter to surge off the starting line. Aside from simply providing extra stuff to do, these seem like a great fit for a campaign format this unforgiving, as those micro-decisions could be the difference between advancing in a run and starting it over.
My One Lingering Hope
All things considered, the various previews of Star Wars: Galactic Racer have done exactly what they were intended to, and I can confidently say I am hyped for this game’s release on October 6. My single real worry is where podracing ends up living in all this. That vehicle type will be the fastest and most fragile on offer, which makes that race type Galactic Racer‘s pinnacle challenge.
Developers at Fuse have stated that podracing (and racers like Sebulba himself) get introduced to the campaign “in an interesting way,” but to my mind, it ought to serve as a campaign’s final exam rather than a bonus on the side. I want podracing to be the roguelite campaign’s endgame, where I’ve truly got everything to lose. After all, in the first Star Wars racing game in two decades, one that was built accordingly on terror and consequence, the Boonta Eve Classic is the only fitting place for a run to close in victory, or crash in defeat.
- Released
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October 6, 2026
- Developer(s)
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Fuse Games
- Publisher(s)
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Secret Mode
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
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Full
