Life can feel kinda slow sometimes. Well, until you hit 30 and then every chocolate bar you eat makes you feel like Eren Yaeger after kissing a queen’s hand. If you wanna speed your life up a bit, here are the racing games that everyone needs to try at least once.
BeamNG.drive
Have you ever played a racing game then felt disappointed when you crash a car and it feels like you’ve sustained no damage at all? Of course you have, that’s most racing games with licensed cars to be honest. BeamNG.drive doesn’t offer licensed cars, at least not officially since there’s thousands of mods for this game, but it does offer cars with crumple zones instead of airbags. You ever want to see a car turn into a steel cube at 150 mph? This is the game for you.
Offering soft-body vehicles physics, BeamNG.drive was developed and released in 2013 as more of a tech demo than a full game, but over the course of a decade, there’s been a wealth of updates, adding a full career mode, online play and more. What sets BeamNG apart from other racing games is that it gives players the complete freedom to drive how they want. Free roam, delivery missions, rally racing, grand prix tracks, cop pursuits and more make it an endlessly replayable experience you shouldn’t miss out on.
Blur
It’s time to talk about one of the best kart racers ever made. Well, calling Blur a kart racer is strange, considering it includes real, licensed cars from actual manufacturers, but then you’ve got pick-ups placed across all of the tracks that include weapons that function pretty similarly to items you’d expect from Mario Kart. Sounds like a kart racer to us, honestly.
Yeah, Blur is a weird one, because it features real life cars and locations, but all the racers are throwing bonkers, energy-based weapons at each other in order to reach pole position. The races are energetic, chaotic and incredibly fun, unless you’re the one getting hammered from first to last by weapons, but with an in-depth career mode and plenty of unlocks, it’s still well worth checking out despite its age. There’s even a dedicated Discord group about playing the game online that’s active today, so if you’re looking for a new multiplayer racer, don’t be a Beetlebum and give this game a go.
Burnout 3: Takedown
Can we please rescue Criterion from working on the Battlefield content mines and have them get back on the Burnout series, please? There hasn’t been an arcade racer quite like Burnout, and nothing hits quite the same as classic Burnout. Whether you choose to play Burnout Revenge or Paradise instead, those are also incredible games, but for our money, Burnout 3 is the best of the best.
Arguably the first racing game outside of anything Destruction Derby-related that actively encouraged an ultra aggressive mentality, giving you boost for having your opponents slam into obstacles, Burnout 3 felt like a breath of fresh air. Simulation racing is great and all, but sometimes it’s nice to just do a bit of car crime. Throw in the crash mode, arguably racing’s best minigame, where you launch cars into busy junctions and watch the destruction pile up, and you’ve got racing game royalty right here.
Daytona USA
Unquestionably the most interesting version of NASCAR in history, mostly because you aren’t just watching dudes getting drunk for half of it and it instead has a slot machine buried in the side of the mountain, Daytona USA isn’t the most complex racing game ever made. There’s not that many circuits and only one car to choose from, but when the gameplay, music and overall vibes are that good, who’s going to complain.
Daytona USA sees players racing against loads of other cars across three circuits. The Advanced and Expert Circuits actually forces players to use the right side of their steering wheel instead of just constantly turning left, but the most iconic track is Beginner, as it’s the one based on the actual Daytona Speedway. You know, in terms of layout anyway. Again, NASCAR would be way more interesting if tracks had mountain tunnels with huge slot machines stuck on them.
Dirt 5
The Dirt series has been around for way longer than some players may even realise, considering it originally started as a spin-off of the Colin McRae Rally series, but Dirt has managed to build an identity of its own. Dirt 5 allows players to experience many different disciplines of racing.
As you’d probably expect given the series’ origins, you’ve got traditional rallycross races, along with stadium supertruck racing and even ice racing on the frozen waters around New York. There’s plenty to sink your teeth into here, all packaged in a fully voice acted career mode complete with its own story. If all of that doesn’t sound like enough for you, Dirt 5 even includes full creation tools for players to create their own event types and tracks, ensuring there’s always an endless supply of automotive fun to be had.
It’s probably not the most universally beloved Dirt game, but it is the easiest to pick up and play, so if you want to move on the other, straighter Dirt games after, you’re welcome to.
F-Zero GX
Look, we need to get the disclaimers out of the way here, because F-Zero GX is undoubtedly the hardest game in this video. F-Zero GX is a brutal game that will eat you for breakfast if you don’t mesh with its very unique gameplay. Hell, even if you are great at it, the ludicrous difficulty levels of the game’s story mode makes you feel like you’ve just picked the game up for the first time and don’t know your Captain Falcon’s from your Captain Charisma’s. Call us masochists though because we bloody love this game.
The original antigravity racing game, F-Zero felt like Nintendo’s flagship racing game before Mario Kart basically took that mantle. 30 racers compete on races that reach thousands of kilometres an hour, and with dozens of tracks, plenty of racers and machines each with their own identities, a full blown story mode that’s harder than most Dark Souls games, and the ability to create your own machines and stickers, F-Zero GX is a crazy ambitious racing game. Make a damn sequel now Nintendo/SEGA, please.
F1 25
Given that Formula 1 is probably the most recognisable racing sport in the world, naturally there’s a bunch of racing games based on it. Anyone looking for some kind of unrealistic take on highly trained racers in aerodynamic, ultra-powered vehicles getting absolutely mullered by g-forces, go play F1 All-Stars on the PS3 and Xbox 360 I suppose. F1 25 is about as realistic as it gets without actually jumping into a cockpit and doing a couple of laps around Silverstone, but obviously security foiled our plans for that last time. F1 25 it is then.
Aimed more towards fans of the sport, F1 25 includes all the presentation trappings you’d expect from the official F1 broadcast, along with a career mode that takes you through all the aspects of being a driver and managing a team. Race testing, qualifying and finally race day; everything is there for you if you want. Or, just stick on some quicker settings, drive for a couple of laps and move on to the next race. The beauty of F1 25 is that you can choose the experience that’s best for you.
Forza Horizon 5
Forza is a tough one to place in this video, purely because there’s two different versions of Forza running co-currently. If you love simulation racing, Forza Motorsport is a pure distillation of autosport, though we’re of the opinion that there’s another racing game series that does simulation just as good if not slightly better. We’ll get to it shortly. If you’re looking for a festival of racing that doesn’t take itself quite so seriously though, the Forza Horizon series is the one for you, and FH5 might just be the best version of it.
Set in the open world of Mexico, Forza Horizon 5 drops you (literally, out of a plane) into the middle of an automotive festival and lets you choose how you want to make progress. If you want to do stunts like a modern day Evel Knievel, you can. Track racing or off-road? You can do that too, or you can head online and play games of tag and infection with up to 11 other players. Even the creatives can have their needs met, making vinyl customisation for other players to download and enjoy. Fantastic stuff, and with the recent-ish PlayStation ports, everyone can enjoy this one.
Gran Turismo 7
The byword on simulation racing, pretty much everyone has played Gran Turismo in some form. Outside of Nintendo’s red shelling launching racing series, there are few racing games with as much cultural exposure as Gran Turismo, and the reason for that is clear: it’s arguably the best celebration of real-life automotive culture that’s ever been created, and that’s never been more clear with Gran Turismo 7. Sure, you might have to sit through five minute cutscenes about the history of Mazda, making it feel a bit pretentious, but its earnestness is palpable.
Gran Turismo 7 continues the franchise’s love affair with sprawling career modes that let players build their dream car garage. You buy cars, complete races to earn more cars, opening up more disciplines and cups to compete in, and all the while you’ve got license tests that allow you to test specific techniques while behind the wheel. Admittedly, it was a bit of a grind at launch, but post-launch updates have tightened up the experience, making it more worthy of the Gran Turismo name.
Grip
We often tell people to sail the seven seas if they want to play old games, and we could’ve done the same here to get players to download the PS1 banger that is Rollcage. Fortunately for us, the developers of Rollcage reformed years later to create a spiritual successor, Grip, that retains the iconic gameplay while ramping up the speed and giving the formula a whole new coat of paint. Anti-gravity isn’t new to gaming, but you’ve never had your brain melted by anti-gravity in the way Grip does.
Vehicles in Grip have wheels that are bigger than the vehicle itself, which lets you drive on your roof and continue your momentum like nothing’s wrong. Using this, Grip’s tracks feature loops, jumps and more that utilise momentum in wonderful ways. Post launch updates added new vehicles and tracks, making it more complete than ever and worth checking out. Plus, you can get it for pretty damn cheap these days. Can’t argue with that.
Make Way
There’s a really specific trend of racing games that’s been around for decades, and that’s party/multiplayer focused games about miniature racers. We’re thinking of the likes of Micro Machines, or Mashed for the PS2, but there’s a more modern take that channels the ideas of the past with some ideas of the present to create something wonderful. That game is Make Way.
Like Micro Machines and others, you control tiny cars racing around tracks from a top-down view, picking up weapons to try and knock people off track or get so far ahead that the camera doesn’t follow them anymore. Where the genius of Make Way comes into play is with its round structure. Borrowing from a game like Ultimate Chicken Horse, players are given a choice of track construction items at the start of a round, and must place them in a way to try and obstruct other races. As the rounds progress, the track gets longer, the hazards get more ridiculous and the points continue to mount until there’s a winner. Endlessly replayable, every gaming group should try Make Way.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Here’s a fact: pretty much every Mario Kart is incredible. Mario Kart 64 really ignited gamer’s love affair with kart racing, while Double Dash appeals to our GameCube loving hearts. Today though, we’re recommending MK8 Deluxe, mainly because Mario Kart World hasn’t been out as long and MK8 is easier to get hold of.
Nintendo didn’t get many things right with the Wii U, but they sure nailed Mario Kart, so when the Switch rolled around, Nintendo made the smart decision to just create the Deluxe version of MK8. More tracks, more characters and bolstered online play helped cement MK8 Deluxe as the best entry in the series, and that’s without talking about the Booster Course Pass. Get it, play it forever, never regret it until you’ve been Blue Shell ten times in a row.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles
The Midnight Club series has always played second fiddle to the Need For Speed series, but you know what? Not in this video matey. While NFS’ take on street racing is incredibly fun, Midnight Club is more engaging, tougher and feels better to play. Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition tends to be the high watermark for most people, but today, let’s focus on Midnight Club: Los Angeles, which let players loose on the City of Angels.
As a newcomer to Tinseltown, you immediately decide to put your skills behind the wheel to use by taking over the city’s underground racing scene. Throughout the game, you’ll work your way through various clubs, each with their own vehicle specialities, learn special abilities that can be used to gain an advantage over your opponents, and build out a garage of muscle cars, tuners, super cars and even bikes. Midnight Club will always have the fact it has bikes over Need For Speed, and racing said bikes is some of the most thrilling street racing gameplay there is.
Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
Never mind burning a candle, we’re basically holding a full-on memorial shrine for the OutRun series at this point. SEGA’s racing franchise that was essentially the designer’s barely disguised fetish for Ferrari, Outrun is all vibes. Open top supercars, perfect sunsets and a girl in the passenger seat? It’s the stuff a thousand vaporwave album covers are made of. While the 2D early entries are still fun thanks to their simple mechanics, nothing in the OutRun series matches up to OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast.
An enhanced version of Outrun 2, which was released a few years earlier, OutRun 2006 retains that classic arcadey gameplay of completing five tracks out of a possible 15, with players choosing the easy or hard path at the end of each track. 2006 also included the arcade-only OutRun 2 SP, which offered 15 new tracks, along with more Ferraris than ever and a fully fledged single player career mode with races and missions to complete. It’s the complete OutRun experience, and if there’s not a 20th anniversary version in 2026, we’ve failed as a species.
Ridge Racer 6
Namco’s arcade racing series Ridge Racer might not be around as much as it used to be, but the impression it made during its long lifespan cannot be understated. Sure, it wasn’t the first game in the world to be sold on the idea of cars drifting around corners being cool, but in terms of pure racing gameplay and physics, Ridge Racer might be unbeaten. As for which Ridge Racer game is best, anything from R4 to the PSP and proper PS3 releases is worth your time, but we’ve a soft spot for Ridge Racer 6 if we’re being honest.
Released for the Xbox 360, Ridge Racer 6 feels like “the best of the series so far” type of entry, with plenty of fan favourite tracks, hundreds of career events to complete, hundreds of cars to unlock and a gameplay engine that’s easy to learn, hard to truly master. It’s a shame that Namco would lose sight of what made the Ridge Racer series so beloved, handing the series to then Flatout developers Bugbear for the Burnout knock-off Ridge Racer Unbounded. Boohoo.
Speedrunners
A common misconception some people might have about racing games is that you need to be in some kind of vehicle in order for it to count, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Look no further than Speedrunners, a competitive racing game in the form of a 2D platformer. Again, the lack of cars doing sick tricks around corners might make this one feel unlike any other racing game ever made, but if you can grab three friends to experience this with, there’s no other racing game like it.
Players pick from a choice of several characters, though the choice is merely cosmetic, as they race around specific levels. Levels are structured like a circuit so you’re doing laps, but the race takes place on one screen similar to Make Way, so the way you win is by doing so well that no-one else can keep up the camera. Throw a bevy of items and stage hazards and you’ve got Mario Kart for people who prefer platformers. Ridiculously fun to pull out at parties, Speedrunners is a racing game for everyone to enjoy.
Tokyo Xtreme Racer
While it might be one of the more niche racing games we’ve mentioned today, Tokyo Xtreme Racer has been around in some form or another since the 90s. Starting out life as Shutokō Battle ’94: Drift King on the Super Famicom, the series has always been about the very real illegal pastime of street racing on the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo. It’s worn many names over the years, including Import Tuner Challenge, Kaido Battle, Street Supremacy and finally Tokyo Xtreme Racer.
After taking nearly two decades to rehab the series, Tokyo Xtreme Racer returned to Steam Early Access in 2025, again focused on Shuto racing in a blocked off version of future Tokyo. What makes racing in Tokyo Xtreme Racer unique is the 1 on 1 races where players put spirit on the line. These Spirit Battles are about who can get out in front and hold it, draining their opponent’s Spirit like health in a fighting game. Throw in plenty of customisation and some gorgeous graphics, and this is a racing game you shouldn’t skip.
Trackmania
Trackmania was the little racing game that could for a long time. Developer Nadeo was a small indie studio from France, who released Trackmania in 2003 to middling reviews, but it managed to find a loyal and devoted audience immediately. Six years later, Ubisoft would purchase Nadeo, and the series has still been going strong to this day. Sure, the current version of Trackmania has its issues, like the fact it has a subscription model to access certain features, but Trackmania wouldn’t have this dedicated following of competitive players if the gameplay wasn’t incredible. Thankfully, it is.
Unlike other racing games here, Trackmania’s approach to racing feels more like a competitive time trial. You’re not shunting your competition off the road here, just competing to see who can post the fastest time on courses that often play more like a cross between high speed platforming challenge and rollercoaster. There’s a limitless amount of racing to be found here.
Wipeout Omega Collection
We’ve been guilty of committing anti-gravity racing bias, taking every opportunity to talk about F-Zero yet neglecting to give Wipeout that same energy. In that way, we’re just as bad as Sony, shutting down Studio Liverpool and leaving the Wipeout series out in the cold for nearly a decade at this point. A game like Wipeout could have been a graphical statement piece for the PS5/PS5 Pro, but alas, we’ll make do with Wipeout Omega Collection.
Released for the PS4, Wipeout Omega Collection is an admittedly weird remaster collection, containing the contents of Wipeout HD from 2008, itself a collection of Wipeout Pure and Pulse on PSP, along with prequel game Wipeout 2048. Quite why they didn’t decide to just remake the first three Wipeout games, we’ll never know, but the fact remains that Wipeout Omega Collection retains the iconic gameplay and style of Wipeout while adding the series’ best ever visuals. It’s tough to learn, but a real treat on the senses when you gel with it.
Wreckfest
Remember Bugbear that we mentioned earlier, and how they created arguably the worst Ridge Racer game ever? Pre-Unbounded, they were doing okay for themselves with the Flatout series, which offered Destruction Derby thrills. When Unbounded flopped, Bugbear went back to square one, destruction derbies, and created Wreckfest as a result. The rest is history, as we now have a new standard for excellence when it comes to destruction derby inspired racing.
Like other destruction derby games, Wreckfest’s racing is all about being the fastest around the track, but if you can make your opponent crash along the way, even better. Similar to BeamNG.drive, Wreckfest also utilises soft-body destruction physics, which often leave you wondering how a vehicle is still able to function when half the chassis is hanging on for dear life. With plenty of silly vehicles and events, Wreckfest is a game that doesn’t take racing too seriously, making for a real treat of an online multiplayer game. Get your group chat on a figure 8 track and just wait for the salt to start flowing.
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