If you were watching last week’s Sony State of Play, you’ll have surely seen the latest trailer for Star Wars: Galactic Racer. Hectic chases through exotic planets, tense moments between the drivers, and… Wait. Hang on. That crash, it looked a lot like a Burnout crash? Was that real, or some cinematic sleight of hand aimed at getting 2000’s arcade racing fans overly eager?

Well, it turns out it was the real thing. That trailer, entirely captured in-engine, did in fact show a Burnout-style crash as a small exciting moment in Galactic Racer’s campaign mode. This, while obviously being a sweet touch for a ramshackle racing game, is one element of what appears to be narrative-rich rally royale fitting snuggly within Star Wars canon.

“Yes, you might have seen a bit of that!” Kieran Crimmins told Eurogamer, laughing from what appeared to be his home office. Crimmins, as the creative director of Star Wars Galactic Racer, is one of many who formed Fuse Games; a backup car filled with former Criterion developers. These creatives, with a lengthy history working on all manner of racing games including the Burnout series, are bringing their talents to a galaxy far far away.

“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 want to bring that to this game,” Crimmins explained. “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.”

Crimmins was joined by one Craig Derrick, a producer at Lucasfilms working alongside Fuse Games on Galactic Racer, eager to speak on the game’s authenticity. “I’d jump in to say it’s high thrill, but also high risk! The spectacular crashes in Galactic Racer, there’s elements of that you see in the Burnout series and other racing games, but also the Pod Racing sequence in Star Wars Episode One!

“The fragility of these vehicles in this game, the scrappiness we’re implying in this era… They’re really just put together for racing, sort of inherently dangerous to race and in a place where crashes are gonna happen. We want to be able to show that! Cinematically in a fun way, but also lean into the arcade elements while emphasizing this is a dangerous sport you’re engaging in.

“All the vehicles we have tie into that threat level, as well as the opportunistic choices you can make to win the race. This includes the vehicle you choose, the type of environment you’re in, the type of line you’re racing in. But yeah, spectacular crashes are going to happen.”

These Burnout-style crashes, while certainly appealing to the Star Wars layperson, also play an integral part of the fantasy according to Derrick and Crimmins. With the Galactic Empire in tatters, people across the Star Wars fiction are having to pull the pieces together and build something meaningful, with some using these pieces to build junkyard vehicles to race vicious across the stars.

“There’s a few different things from a play point-of-view,” Crimmins said. “Putting our expertise and studio sensibilities into the Star Wars space, it has a rich landscape of vehicle fantasies. Some core pillar racing fantasy, but also as Craig said this used-universe of cobbled together vehicles. All those flavourings are key to that Star Wars vehicle fantasy.

“So while we have our own studio sensibilities, we looked to our partners at Lucas to make sure we translate those into an authentic Star Wars experience. That means having high-octane visceral action with risk / reward mechanics, but also a breadth of experiences you can have in the game. Telling a story, you’ve got characters and a running storyline that feels like a Star Wars journey you’re going on. It’s why we’ve worked so closely with Lucas, so you get that Star Wars magic.”

Derrick linked the game very much to this particular era of Star Wars, as well as real world racing history: “For us at Lucas it’s all about story, it starts with story. Obviously the film part of Lucas Film is the storytelling part of that, the games part is how you make that interactive. How do you tell an amazing story where you have agency? I think we do that really well, and we’re doing that well here. This is ultimately an underdog story and it leans into elements you see in other racing stories, it speaks to the origins of this new league popping up around the end of the Galactic Empire. It’s also evocative of this time around the end of World War 2, when all these people had all this machinery. When it was about Hot Rods, testing out jet engines and slamming them in the Salt Flats and trying to race. We have a scrappy group of characters in this that I feel is very exciting.

“And it’s not galactic-wide stakes, it’s a local story. There are stakes to each of these characters, they have agendas and reasons for why they’re doing what they’re doing. But it’s less life or death and more win or lose. So it’s strongly linked to the competitiveness of the story. The last thing I’ll say about authenticity is it’s all about aesthetics. It has to look like Star Wars. It has to read familiar as racing in that universe, and it’s also the sounds. The music, the engines and these vehicles crunching and hitting each other that’s grounded in some authenticity.”

Star Wars Galactic Racer is out in 2026 on the PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S. No specific release date has been announced.