With Hot Wheels Infinite Rush slowly rolling up to its September 10th release date, developer Milestone was kind enough to answer many of our questions about the upcoming open-world arcade racer. Game director Domenico Celenza spoke about many subjects, like the core gameplay loop, the Rush Squad system, and more.
Infinite Rush represents a substantial structural change from the Hot Wheels Unleashed games, building the experience around four explorable islands. What did an open-world structure allow Milestone to do with Hot Wheels that wasn’t possible with the previous games?
The biggest change for us was moving away from the classic structure where you just jump from one race to the next through a list of menus. By bringing in exploration, we wanted to fill the gap between events with actual gameplay. As you drive around the islands, there’s always something to do, secrets to uncover, or optional challenges to try out with your cars. It gives players total freedom to set their own pace and experience the Hot Wheels world in a much more dynamic way, rather than just focusing on the finish line.
The ability to leave the orange track is one of Infinite Rush‘s defining ideas. How do you maintain the precision and spectacle associated with traditional Hot Wheels tracks while also allowing players to find their own routes through the environment?
The orange pieces definitely aren’t gone. We integrated them directly into the environment alongside iconic playsets, giant loops, and classic toy structures. One second you’re driving on dirt or asphalt, and the next you’re launching onto a massive orange ramp.
These Hot Wheels elements also serve as a spectacular backdrop across the islands. Having recognizable pieces framing the landscape keeps that crazy stunt vibe alive everywhere you look. Even when players leave the track to find their own path, they always feel like they’re racing in an authentic Hot Wheels world.
On top of that, for tracks set directly on the natural terrain, we created a special “invisible” module. Instead of traditional orange plastic walls, it uses semi-transparent holographic barriers. This guides players along the route without blocking the view, letting them race freely while taking in the environment.
Rush Squad allows players to rapidly switch between the four vehicle classes. How do you design events so that choosing the right class is meaningful without simply creating situations where there is one obvious ‘correct’ vehicle to use?
For structured track races, the track itself dictates the required class. Having four distinct vehicle classes pushed us to rethink track design: instead of forcing every car type onto the exact same course, we built tracks specifically designed for each category. We developed specific design rules for every class, shaping track layouts, interactive objects, and animated modules around their unique strengths and weaknesses. Races are now strictly class-vs-class, which gave us the freedom to create much more distinct courses that highlight the identity of each vehicle type.
Free roaming, on the other hand, is all about player freedom. Out in the open world, we want players to experiment and express themselves however they like using the tools available. Figuring out which vehicle class works best for a specific objective or activity is a part of the challenge and a core element of exploring the islands.
Vehicles can also be enhanced through perks. How extensively can those upgrades alter a car’s behaviour before it begins stepping on the role of another class, and how important was preserving the identity of Drifters, Speeders, Versatiles and Titans?
Preserving class identity was our top priority, especially since track design relies so heavily on those unique mechanics. Perks are designed to refine your playstyle, not erase what makes a category special.
The system spans four ranks (C, B, A, and S), built around a clear principle: the stronger the perk, the greater the trade-off. Ranks C through A let you fine-tune handling, boost, and physics parameters, but always with balanced compromises. S-Rank perks, which sit at the top, are class-exclusive. Rather than changing a category’s identity, they push its defining traits even further with dramatic gameplay twists.
For example, a Speeder can drastically increase its boost recharge at top speed, but its brakes become much more reactive, requiring extreme precision. Or a Titan can charge its boost much faster, but overcharging it results in a much harsher slowdown penalty. This ensures vehicles stay true to their core identity while still giving players total freedom to tune their setup.
Each island eventually builds towards encounters with Rushers and Rush Masters. What can these boss-style races do mechanically that a conventional race or event can’t?
Mechanically, we wanted to keep the focus on pure racing, but the 1v1 format fundamentally changes the tension compared to a standard event. When you’re facing a Rusher or a Rush Master, it becomes a high-stakes duel. The AI is tuned to be much more competitive, meaning that getting into first place is only half the battle—maintaining that lead until the finish line requires absolute concentration and precision.
Ultimately, these races act as a final test for everything that specific island throws at you. It’s less about managing a full grid of cars and more about a focused, head-to-head battle where a single mistake can cost you the match.
The Track Builder can now interact much more closely with the open world and even use action markers to control AI behaviour. How do you make sure AI racers can reliably understand and complete the more extreme tracks that players are inevitably going to build?
To help the AI handle complex creations, we give players three main AI markers in the Track Builder, which are simplified versions of the same tools we use internally. You can place speed-up markers, slow-down markers, or direction markers on either side of the track to guide the AI’s racing line.
That said, adding AI and setting up these markers is completely optional, and tracks undergo a separate validation process if you choose to include them. We expect the most patient and experienced players to build some truly crazy tracks that the AI can actually race on, but we ultimately leave it up to the player to decide how deep they want to dive into those features.
With user-created tracks becoming such a large part of the experience, what systems are you putting in place for discovering, rating and sharing good creations rather than having the best tracks disappear beneath thousands of uploads?
To make sure the best content rises to the top, we built a rating system based on likes and favorites. It ranks community creations across three timeframes (all-time, monthly and weekly) so the community naturally highlights what’s worth playing. For online races, the game mixes official tracks with UGC ones that have reached a certain threshold of likes. This keeps multiplayer events fresh while ensuring you’re always racing on high-quality tracks.
On top of that, we have a dedicated section called “Recommended”, which features our Developer Picks. We regularly curate and spotlight our favorite creations to give players a quick way to discover wild new tracks that might have otherwise been missed.
You’ve already announced substantial post-launch additions, including new vehicles and the Ferrari expansion. How do you introduce additional cars over time without creating power creep or making paid vehicles disproportionately competitive?
Avoiding pay-to-win dynamics is a top priority for us. When we introduce new vehicles, including those in the Ferrari expansion, our goal is to satisfy fans and collectors rather than shifting the competitive balance. Every new car is tuned to fit directly into our four existing vehicle classes: they follow the exact same performance standards and trade-offs as the base roster, giving players new options and driving feel without any unfair performance advantage. DLCs and expansions are built to enrich the experience and expand player choice, while keeping every category balanced and competitive for everyone.
The PS5 version is confirmed to be PS5 Pro Enhanced. What specifically does the Pro version improve over the standard PS5 release, and what resolution and frame-rate targets are you aiming for across PS5, Series X and Series S?
On PS5 Pro, we are pushing performance up to 120 FPS compared to the 60 FPS on the base console, using PSSR to keep the image razor-sharp at up to 4K resolution. Across the board, our main goal is simply making sure the game runs smoothly and feels great to play on every platform. So to sum it all up:
- PS5 Pro: 4K resolution with PSSR, up to 120 FPS
- PS5: 4K resolution at 60 FPS
- XBOX Series X: 4K resolution at 60 FPS
- XBOX Series S: 1440p resolution at 60 FPS
- Nintendo Switch 2: 1080p resolution at 30 FPS
Switch 2 races are limited to six competitors rather than the twelve supported elsewhere, and the platform is excluded from full cross-play. What technical or design considerations led to those differences?
There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding here. The vehicle limit on Switch 2 is not a general restriction for the entire game, but applies specifically to local split screen mode. In split screen, the total number of vehicles participating in the race is capped at six. Depending on how many human players are competing, from two to four, AI cars will fill out the remaining slots up to that six car limit. The reason is purely technical. In split screen, the engine has to render the game world and its physics multiple times simultaneously, once for each player’s viewport, which places a heavy demand on the hardware. To maintain a stable frame rate, we had to make a few performance compromises. That said, as we gain more experience working with Switch 2 hardware in the future, we hope to optimize performance even further.
Infinite Rush is also targeting hardware ranging from Switch 2 to devices such as ROG Xbox Ally. How much does the density or complexity of the open world scale between those machines and the more powerful consoles and PCs, rather than simply reducing resolution and visual quality?
We put a substantial effort into keeping the overall density and complexity of the open world intact across all platforms. Rather than stripping away core world elements, we tuned finer details and specific parameters, such as draw distances for lower-tier assets and geometry LODs. The vast hardware gap meant using different rendering technologies depending on the machine. For instance, we leverage Unreal Engine features like Nanite and Lumen on PS5 and XBOX Series X, whereas hardware like Switch 2 rely on more traditional pipelines. This approach allowed us to find the right balance between smooth performance and visual fidelity without compromising our artistic vision on any system.
