While the recently released Star Wars: Galactic Racer certainly has quite a bit of DNA from old-school arcade racers like the Burnout series, developer Fuse Games decided to kick things up a notch by implementing more gameplay elements for players to deal with. In an interview with GamesRadar, CEO of developer Fuse Games, Tom Sawyer, has discussed this decision to give players more to deal with in a modern arcade racer.
Since it has been several years since the last Burnout came out – 2008 for Burnout Paradise and 2018 for its remaster – Sawyer noted that players have gotten generally better at playing games these days. This means that they have the ability to deal with more cognitive load while also partaking in high-speed racing where a momentary wrong decision could lead to a violent crash.
“One of the things that’s really interesting for me is that modern gamers can manage a greater amount of cognitive load. We are asking way more out of players in this game than I think we’ve ever done in a racing game with multiple boost things, pressing more than one face button at a time, switching up the abilities, and thinking strategically and tactically at the same time whilst traveling at 700 kilometers an hour and your eyes are on stalks. It’s quite amazing.”
This also ties into Fuse Games’ history, since many of the developers working at the studio have previously also had a hand in creating games from the Burnout franchise. Even the moment-to-moment gameplay of Star Wars: Galactic Racer ties into this, since as we noted last month, the title was already giving us serious Burnout vibes before it even came out.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and in our review, we gave it a score of 9 out of 10. We praised its tight racing mechanics, satisfying takedowns, and interesting implementation of roguelite systems. Our only criticism was that the vehicle types didn’t offer enough granular variety, and that it lacked content outside of its core campaign.
The game’s creative director, Kieran Crimmins, had previously spoken about how the team was tapping into its Burnout experience to present an exciting racing game. “Fuse was made with a combination of people who have worked together for a fairly long time, there’s things we’ve loved in Arcade racing – visceral high-octane action, and we want to bring that to this game.”
“Those sensibilities and some of that DNA from previous games we’ve worked on, obviously, that’s in this game because we want to bring that stuff. It’s the core of pick-up-and-play arcade racing with great depth, but also great thrill. There’s also certain game mechanics that are part of our DNA in there as well.”
For more on Star Wars: Galactic Racer, check out the launch trailer highlighting some podracing action from earlier this week. And while you’re at it, check out our guide offering the best tips and tricks to make sure that you’re ready for its high-stakes racing action.
