As one of the leading home consoles of its generation, the PlayStation 5 boasts impressive titles of all genres, including several acclaimed racing games, from realistic sports games to more chaotic kart racers. Here are the best racing games currently available to play on the PlayStation 5.
13 Must-Play Racing Games on PS5
13. F1 24
As a powerhouse in the sports game market, it’s a no-brainer that Electronic Arts has branched into professional racing games and has done so for over 20 years. Since 2000, EA has consistently released Formula 1 racing games, with its latest being F1 24, which received its own version optimized for the PlayStation 5. This installment revamps the career mode and other gameplay features while reflecting the current state of the Formula 1 competitive scene around the world.
In this overhauled career mode, players can select real-life Formula 1, Formula 2, and retired drivers and build their racing reputation over the course of entire seasons. F1 24 also adds new features to the overall experience, including special mid-race objectives to satisfy teams and sponsors. With an added layer of authenticity and growing amount of game modes, F1 24 takes the EA franchise into the future.
12. Team Sonic Racing
For a franchise based all around speed, Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends make a no-brainer move into the racing game space. However, rather than letting them run on foot, 2019’s Team Sonic Racing places the blue speedster and his extensive supporting cast in karts for high-speed races. True to its title, the game primarily revolves around racing teams as opposed to individual races, sharing power-ups and assisting them as they drive together against rivals.
With a playable roster of 15 racers, each with their own distinct traits behind the wheel, and 21 tracks from familiar franchise environments, Team Sonic Racing is a must-own for any major Sonic fan. While the game’s story mode is a bit uneven, its racing experience is as intuitive as ever for Sega’s Sonic spinoff series. Providing a wealth of gameplay options, Team Sonic Racing is the definitive racing title for Sega’s flagship franchise.
11. LEGO 2K Drive
LEGO has been a steady presence in the video game industry for decades, primarily with its line of licensed 3D platformers providing its own brick-based twist on numerous IP partners. But LEGO has also been producing racing games since 1999 intermittently, with its latest being 2023’s LEGO 2K Drive which plunges players into the expansive LEGO world of Bricklandia. Featuring all the chaotic fun and customizable options one might expect from a LEGO, the game is one of best racing titles based on LEGO.
LEGO 2K Drive offers a story mode, but also cup-centric races, a whole host of minigames, and open-world exploration of Bricklandia. The game also takes advantage of modern platforms with a slick visual design and seamless vehicle transformation as the environments and tracks they traverse change and require different tools for the job. Capturing the customizable spirit of LEGO, LEGO 2K Drive is a solid, all-age friendly racing experience.
10. Redout
With the F-Zero franchise on ice for well over a decade, there is a considerable void in high-speed science fiction racing games available on modern consoles. Fortunately, the anti-gravity racing game Redout, released for home consoles in 2017, offers players with the cosmic sci-fi fun they’ve been craving in full. Set in the year 2560, Redout follows racers who return to an abandoned Earth years after humanity relocated to Mars to survive.
With eleven game modes across 35 racing tracks, four classes of vehicles, and seven racing teams, there is plenty of fun to be had in Redout. A tribute to the arcade racers of the late ‘90s and early 2000s, like Hydro Thunder, the gameplay in Redout unfolds fast and furious as players race each other in dazzling environments. With both local and online multiplayer, Redout’s unique physics make for a racing experience unlike any other.
9. Need for Speed Unbound
The early Need for Speed games were among the most successful titles on the original PlayStation and the long-running racing franchise has remained a mainstay on PlayStation consoles ever since. The most recent installment in Electronic Arts’ franchise is 2022’s Need for Speed Unbound, set in the fictional Lakeshore City, inspired by Chicago. Unbound features a striking animation design for the series, blending cel-shaded visuals with graffiti-style artwork.
Need for Speed Unbound is the best game the series has had in years, after a prolonged period of middling titles for much of the 2010s. Given its aesthetics and story mode, Unbound wisely retains the Heat System from its predecessor, Need for Speed Heat, which allows players to build up notoriety with local law enforcement. With better handling and four volumes of post-release support, Need for Speed Unbound gives the venerable racing franchise its mojo back.
8. MotoGP 22
For gamers looking for a more high-octane experience, the MotoGP series has provided fans with fast-paced motorcycle racing games for the past several years. One of the biggest highlights in the series to date is MotoGP 22, which avoids some of the pitfalls that plagued some of its sequels at their respective launches. The 2022 game includes over 120 riders, including over 40 riders and their bikes from across the sport’s classic history, and 20 official racetracks to experience.
Beyond motorcycle racing, MotoGP 22 lets players embark on a manager mode, where they assemble their own crews and teams rise to the top professional motorcycle racing outfit in the world. This isn’t to discount the core racing gameplay, with the handling and customization of the player’s bikes among the best in the series, unbothered by attempts to revamp the franchise. MotoGP 22 set a high bar of quality for the racing game series that has yet to be fully met by any of its successors at launch.
7. Wreckfest
As fun as it is to race pristinely designed and maintained cars around gorgeous tracks all over the world, sometimes it’s just as or even more fun to bust other cars along the way. 2018’s Wreckfest is built on that simple entertainment sensibility, with the game receiving a PlayStation 5 port in 2021 optimized for the superior console hardware. With a wide selection of classic cars, utility vehicles, and flashier imports from Europe and Asia, there is something for everyone as they set out to reduce their rivals’ rides to junk.
Wreckfest revolves around two different primary game modes, banger racing, where intentional collisions are allowed and encouraged, and demolition derbies, where the last car standing wins the competition. To give themselves an edge on the track, players can customize their vehicles ahead of impending competitions, armoring and arming them to survive and inflict the most damage on their opponents. A full-on love letter to automobile destruction, Wreckfest is a cathartic joy to play and wonderful opportunity to embrace the chaos it celebrates.
6. Hotshot Racing
Rendered in an animation style that evokes the first-generation of 3D racing games on the Sega Saturn and PlayStation, 2020’s Hotshot Racing is a game that emphasizes style as much as it does speed. Players choose between eight colorful racers as they set out to prove their fastest in the world, using everything from boosts to drifting to masterfully navigate each race track. Matching the classic aesthetics are retro designed tracks inspired by locations all over the world for players to try their hand at in a variety of game modes.
In addition to the standard grand prix and time trials modes, Hotshot Racing offers a cops-and-robbers chase mode that feels reminiscent of early Need for Speed titles. However, one of the most unique and fun modes has players tasked with maintaining a certain velocity or risk exploding in a challenge that directly channels the classic action movie Speed. Possessing a deceptively deep level of gameplay given its throwback presentation, Hotshot Racing is among the generation’s more underrated racing titles.
5. EA Sports WRC
While EA has the Formula 1 racing scene on lock with its long-running F1 series, it also brings the lovably rough-around-the-edges world of rally car racing to life with EA Sports WRC. An all-around celebration of the sport, EA Sports WRC both recreates classic moments and contemporary rally racing events while allowing players to forge their own digital racing careers. At launch, the game had over 200 different tracks from locations all over the globe to put players to the test in an array of game modes.
There’s just something fun about tearing up the dirt and putting the pedal to the metal in a less glamorized racing setting and EA Sports WRC fully capitalizes on that sensibility. From an ambitious career mode to time trials and cross-platform multiplayer there is plenty for players to experience as they immerse themselves in the high-octane world of rally racing. Accessible to newcomers of rally racing and rewarding to aficionados of the sports, EA Sports WRC is among the most underrated sports titles EA puts out.
4. Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged
Who would’ve thought that Hot Wheels, Mattel’s line of model cars, would’ve produced one of the best racing games of its generation? After the well-received Hot Wheels Unleashed in 2018, Italian video game developer and publisher Milestone followed it up with the even more impressive sequel Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged in 2023. Like its predecessor, the game has players choose which cars to race along model tracks in everyday household locations, like the garage or kitchen.
With 130 playable cars available to choose from at launch alone, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 significantly upped the ante as the biggest game in the franchise to date. The sequel also brings in motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles for the first time while adding a new selection of offline and online game modes. Over the past several years, Hot Wheels has become one of the most consistently solid racing titles currently on modern platforms.
3. Formula Retro Racing: World Tour
There is something timelessly endearing about the crudely rendered vehicles and environments in the early days of 3D gaming, the era that helped usher in the PlayStation in the first place. The visual aesthetics of this era have been recreated with modern gaming sensibilities in the 2023 title Formula Retro Racing: World Tour. With its polygonal vehicle designs and simplified presentation, Formula Retro Racing evokes the classic mid to late ‘90s racing games that helped catapult the genre to new heights.
Despite the throwback presentation, Formula Retro Racing brings in a realistic physics engine and destructible cars along with a wide variety of gameplay modes. With a whole selection of vehicles at their disposal, players can compete locally or online at some of the most iconic locations around the world. More than just a gimmick, Formula Retro Racing is a solid racing game that recaptures the fun of foundational racing games for modern audiences.
2. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
In his earliest years, Crash Bandicoot was the de facto mascot for the PlayStation in North America, initially positioned as Sony’s goofy answer to Nintendo’s Mario. And just as Mario branched into kart racing with his instantly popular Mario Kart series, Crash received a kart racing spinoff series of his with Crash Team Racing in 1999 for the original PlayStation. Just in time for its 20th anniversary, the game was remade for modern consoles with 2019’s Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, offering much more than just the original game with a new coat of digital paint.
Nitro-Fueled gives players the option to alternate between a remaster of the classic 1999 game and the modern presentation and features for its adventure mode while retaining all the content from Crash Team Racing. Additionally, Nitro-Fueled offers content from 2003’s Crash Nitro Kart and 2005’s Crash Tag Team Racing, along with online functionality. A treat for both longtime Crash Bandicoot fans and new enthusiasts, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled restores the racing legacy of the ‘90s video game icon.
1. Gran Turismo 7
The best-selling game on the original PlayStation wasn’t Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy VII, but 1997’s Gran Turismo, with its 1999 sequel as the third best-selling. The racing franchise has been a mainstay on every subsequent PlayStation generation since, including the PlayStation 5 with its 2022 installment Gran Turismo 7. The game takes full advantage of the PS5’s advanced hardware while retaining and refining the racing gameplay that made the franchise such an enduring classic for decades.
With 420 cars available to players at launch, along with a multitude of gameplay modes, Gran Turismo 7 feels like the franchise’s most ambitious swing in years. For those with the PlayStation VR2 peripheral, the immersive virtual reality experience for Gran Turismo 7 has yet to be surpassed by any other game on the console. The next major evolution in console-based racing games, Gran Turismo 7 lives up to the lofty expectations of its global fan base.
Published: Oct 11, 2024 05:19 am