As it turns out, I’m a pretty good pod racer. Not the best, but I can hold my own against some of the sport’s biggest names. Star Wars: Galactic Racer is the latest third-party Star Wars game and easily one of my favourites that doesn’t star a Jedi.
And it doesn’t go unnoticed that recently we’ve seen an uptick in great Star Wars games made by non-Disney-owned studios. It’s a smart gamble that’s proven to work when first-party output was minimal, bland, or bad in previous years. Things have changed, and this week’s new title is a 2026 highlight that’s from former Burnout developers at Fuse Games and Secret Mode.
Joining The Galactic League
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is set in the New Republic Era, after the events of Return of the Jedi. Based on its place in the timeline, it features racers from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, such as Ben Quadinaros and Sebulba. It also features multiple tracks on several Star Wars planets, including Tatooine, Lantaana, Jakku, Ando Prime, and Sentinel One.
You play as Shade, a lone racer dreaming of glory and revenge. But Kestar stands in your way, a rival with plans for the League.So your character decides to keep their head down, and it leads you to join a league where you’ll race an assortment of speeders, bikes, and more. It’s a fun premise that lets you tackle an assortment of vehicles well worth riding and some of the coolest rides out there in the galaxy.
Set in the Outer Rim of the Star Wars galaxy, you’ll face high-stakes racers, each with its own playstyle. You join the Galactic League, an unsanctioned racing circuit in the Outer Rim, and chase glory. You can slam, shunt, and take down rivals in various circuits. It’s also one of the most fun titles I’ve played this year.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer also lets you pilot various classes of repulsorcraft, each with distinct physics and playstyles. What I wasn’t prepared for is just how brutal my time with Galactic Racer would be. In my first race outside of the tutorial, I overextended myself and blew myself up by throttling the Ram Jet. In another stretch, a surprise corner caught me off guard, and I drove right into a wall. A bit later, I jumped over a corrosive pit only for my speeder to disintegrate because I stayed on the track too long.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer Is A Blast
The danger in podracing is real, and it will humble any good racer when attempting to take first place. I learned the hard way that simply doing everything in my power to reach first wasn’t enough. I also had to make sure my vehicle could withstand the elements, monitor my Ram Jet usage, and have the right build for the track. If you don’t, you’ll struggle to keep that coveted first-place position.
You can choose from a small number of vehicle types, each with its own mix of advantages and disadvantages. Landspeeders are the simplest option, offering a good balance of speed and control, whereas speeder bikes sacrifice tight handling for excellent acceleration. Skim speeders have just been introduced to the universe; they bank widely and can rotate on their side when drifting, a manoeuvre known as ‘Knife Edge’. Of course, podracers are still there and have been taken into account, although these extremely fast vehicles belong to a completely different category and cannot be raced against other repulsorcraft.
There’s plenty of enjoyment in driving whatever vehicle you choose, and it’s exciting to keep it in good condition, manage your Ramjet and Afterburner upgrades, and get familiar with each track’s features. You also have your speeder’s drift and shield abilities to help you get into first place and win.
The races that follow those ones are different since there are challenge races in which you must meet certain requirements, for instance, by keeping the turbo on for a long time; there are also elimination races in which you have to destroy all the other racers and at the same time complete the race. Such races take place on the planets.
When you finish a path on one planet, you move on to the next one in the league. In certain instances, you won’t lose your token. If you do lose it, you have to start the league over and get a new token from Darius. Sometimes it may be to your advantage to restart the league, even though you can use the money you have earned to improve your ship or get a completely different one.
In addition to races, there are brief on-foot sections where you can have your vehicle repaired or buy additional parts before starting the next part of your journey. During your downtime, you can meet with other characters, talk to them to build relationships, sometimes even race against them. When you develop these relationships, you also gain favours that give permanent buffs. Although the system is extremely “video-gamey” and very formulaic in how it’s put into practice, it does have a strange and unforeseen effect as you play on – you begin to see these other racers as characters rather than as other CPU drivers. It’s a pleasant addition.
It’s also cool to see that Fuse Games has added many small details to Galactic Racer. For instance, at the start of each race, you play a short minigame where you press a series of buttons in the right order to activate your vehicle’s shield and vents and perform a final engine check before the race begins. It’s really fun to make sure your ride is ready for the race. Throughout the campaign, you will race on several well-known planets, including Lantaana and Jakku.
Racing through planets often includes a trove of familiar sights, like on Jakku, where you’ll see a downed Star Destroyer, then hit up the ice planet Ando Prime, where you’ll battle for first place while trying to stay warm, and the jungle planet Lantanna, where you’ll race through jungles and volcanoes. Each planet has its own obstacles, curves, and pathways that’ll help you inch out the others.
By completing these events, you earn credits and stat upgrades to improve your vehicle and increase your chances of surviving a league. The more times you win, the more upgrades you can use. Of course, the situation isn’t always that simple; most league events require a League Entry Token, and if you are eliminated, you lose that token for good. Once you have no League Entry Tokens left, your attempt ends, and you’ll have to start again from the beginning.
That’s where the roguelike elements start to show up. You’ll lose and have to start your attempts to win the league over. It’s a fine way to keep people coming back to play. And despite every crash I caused or was an innocent bystander in, I had a blast. You pick up right where you left off and keep racing toward first place. I was never in a place to say, “this sucks!” or feel like races were a drag. They weren’t. Instead, every race was a thrill.
Eagle-eyed fans will notice nods to the films. Star Wars: Galactic Racer is also stunningly beautiful, with every planet showing incredible visuals and scale; you can really tell how much detail went into each planet as you speed through them, which is pretty impressive.
Verdict
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a thrilling ride. Filled with exciting challenges and a roguelike structure, this game has more depth and content than I expected. I went in expecting a pretty standard racing game, but there are enough twists that every race feels like a thrill all the way to the finish line. Wins and losses are emotional, and hitting max speed and needling the final-lap obstacles while watching the Ram Jet’s redline is unlike anything I’ve played, and it pairs so well with the Star Wars series.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Star Wars: Galactic Racer Review — One More Race
Summary
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a thrilling ride. Filled with exciting challenges and a roguelike structure, this game has more depth and content than I expected.
Liked
One of the most exhilarating racing games out there
Uses a roguelike structure well
Great vehicle selection and upgrades
Didn't Like
Races get chaotic at times and its hard to focus on track layout
