"Racing is in the DNA of Star Wars": Galactic Racer makes more sense for the Star Wars universe than Palpatine somehow returning ever did

Scoundrels and speedsters alike have found a new calling following the fall of the Galactic Empire. If you have the stamina to endure breakneck speeds, and the credits to back up your reputation, then the Galactic League beckons – an unsanctioned racing tournament born in lawless Outer Rim territories. Pick your preferred repulsorcraft, engineer it for maximum performance, and then drive to survive.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer has a simple premise, and one that is authentically Star Wars too – more so than Palpatine somehow returning, or Boba Fett surviving the horrors of the Sarlacc Pit. The Walt Disney Company is 14 years into its stewardship of the Star Wars universe, and its greatest contributions have undoubtedly been when it's been willing to look beyond Skywalker lineage, or binary morality battles, to tell more down-to-Tatooine stories about life in a galaxy far, far away.

Drive to Survive

This is where Star Wars: Galactic Racer has set up shop. "We're in the New Republic era, which is post Return of the Jedi," says Craig Derrick, executive producer at Lucasfilm. "We have done a few shows on Disney Plus in this space. They all have these localized stories with expansive opportunities for the characters, but the overall state of the galaxy is less important. We're leaning into that here; there's real escalation in our story, but it is handled at a more localized level."

Your journey into this underground world begins with Shade. A lone racer summoned by Galactic League organizer, Darius Pax, to save the institution from a hostile takeover by champion Kestar Bool. Your first race is on Jakku, the planet that hosted the Empire's last stand a perfect spot to showcase your bonafides – racing lines carved out of crashed Star Destroyers. "You get this thrill, this adrenaline rush, by racing through all of that," says Derrick, "and the feeling that this is Star Wars immediately."

Navigate all of that, and an entire galaxy of opportunity awaits. From here you'll head to planets old (Jakku and Ando Prime) and new (Sentinel One and Lantaana) to race for pride and glory, mastering the art of driving Landspeeders, Speederbikes, and Skimspeeders in deadly competition. Developer Fuse Games has settled on a track-based design, blending high-octane racing with Burnout-style vehicular combat – a mixture that creative director Kieran Crimmins believes is perfect for the franchise.

"Star Wars already has some amazing racing fantasies in it, but I also feel like there's untapped potential. It's super important that Galactic Racer feels like an authentic Star Wars experience, and that we're giving fans some of the things that they've seen in the movies," says Crimmins, "but it goes beyond just wanting to recapture the iconic sound of the Speederbikes, we want to bring the visceral feeling of riding one to life. The same is true of our Landspeeders, Podracers, and Skimspeeders"

There's plenty for Fuse to draw inspiration from. Whether it's the iconic Boonta Eve Classic event from The Phantom Menace, Bad Batch's Riot Racing, the low-altitude starfighter racing in Resistance, or even the Death Star trench run and Endor chase from the original trilogy. As Derrick says: "Racing is in the DNA of Star Wars – it was a big inspiration for George Lucas."

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George Lucas always had a need for speed. Long before he dreamt up the most iconic universe in science-fiction, he had aspired to be a professional race car driver. A brush with death ultimately forced a change from bucket seat to director's chair, although that core fascination never faded. You see it all throughout the Star Wars franchise, from the way that ships are heavily modified to boost performance into how landscapes are naturally carved to engineer high-octane, vehicle-based action. What's key for Fuse is that it brings this ethos to life throughout Star Wars: Galactic Racer, from both a storytelling and a gameplay perspective.

"Galactic Racer is an underdog story about competition and rivalry," says Derrick. "It calls back to the origins of racing in the real world, and drafts off of a lot of the stories you've seen around racing – it can be scrappy, and that scrappy nature is true to Star Wars' DNA. This is a used universe. We're leaning into the hot-rodding and crafting elements with how you build your vehicle out. With how you build out your team, gain allies, and encounter rivals."

"This really highlights what Star Wars storytelling is all about too, even though the stakes are a little different in a sport," adds Crimmins. "We like to think of Galactic Racer as having a story that's less about the stakes of life or death, and more about win or lose. That's the emotion we want to drive towards."

How Fuse Games and Lucasfilm plan on achieving this is something GamesRadar+ will explore throughout its Big Preview of Star Wars: Galactic Racer. In the coming days you'll learn more about the gameplay fantasy, the steps the team is taking to make this endlessly replayable, and plenty more. There's a reason, after all, that Crimmins refers to Galactic Racer as a "racing adventure game" – and it's because there's far more going on under the hood than you might expect.