Exclusive: Hot Wheels Unleashed Gameplay Shows Off Lightning-Fast Racing

Hot Wheels Unleashed is the next game in the decades-long toy and video game franchise, and GameSpot has an exclusive new gameplay video showcasing the fast-paced micro-racer in action. Announced back in February, with an expected release on September 30 this year for current platforms, it will feature many of the familiar aspects of Hot Wheels, such as cool racing vehicles and complex orange tracks with some bizarre loops and turns.

Our recent hands-on with the game gave us a chance to check out three unique tracks: Spider Trial, Speed Vault, and Dragon’s Den. In keeping with Hot Wheels' style and aesthetic, which features a variety of stylized muscle and sports cars, the races turned into hectic brawls on the track where crashes and conflicts with other racers were common.

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What's interesting about the pedigree behind Hot Wheels Unleashed is that it's coming from developer Milestone, the same team behind racing sims like the MotoGP and Ride franchises. Just before the reveal, we spoke with lead game designer Federico Cardini from developer Milestone about the making of the game and what it was like jumping from one side of the racing genre to the more over-the-top side of an arcade racer.

"I'll be honest, from a development side, it really made me ecstatic, I'd say. We are also fans of racing in general, and we really felt like with an arcade racer like this, we could show our love for the genre," said Cardini while reflecting on Milestone's jump from sim-racing to an arcade racer. "One of our most famous games is Screamer, from the nineties, and that was an arcade racer, and we have an incredible amount of knowledge and expertise on racing games. This is a great opportunity for us where we can really create something unique for a game like [Hot Wheels Unleashed] that uses our years of experience on racing games."

In the final release coming this September, the full game will have 40 standard tracks and over 60 vehicles to collect and race in arcade mode and online. Including preorder bonuses vehicles, such as the GT-Scorcher and Track Manga vehicles, you can also expect to see DLC vehicles post-launch as well. The developer made tracks that ship with the game, and you can use the game's track editor to make your own complex levels to test your skills and share with others online.

The most recent Hot Wheels game that fans got to check out was the tie-in DLC for Forza Horizon 4, which turned out to be a favorite activity in the online racing community. Hot Wheels Unleashed looks to be the kind of game that Hot Wheels fans have come to expect, which leans heavily into the over-the-top racing and fun tracks to race on.