Hot Wheels Infinite Rush‘s open-world approach is easily the biggest departure the series has attempted in years. But open-world racing isn’t exactly a new concept, and I was left feeling like such a creative licence deserved just a little bit more.
Hot Wheels has been around the racing game block more than a few times. Some entries were excellent. I have particularly fond memories of Turbo Racing on the Nintendo 64… and, well, particularly un-fond memories of World’s Best Driver on the Xbox 360 back in 2013.
More recently, the IP has found a home with Milestone, who developed a solid formula with Hot Wheels Unleashed and its sequel, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged. They were perfectly serviceable arcade racers — if not groundbreaking —casting you as a Hot Wheels-sized car driving through everyday real-world environments.
A New Direction
Open-world racing is hardly a new idea, with series like Forza Horizon and Need for Speed having explored the concept for years. But it is a first for a Hot Wheels racer, and I see it as a welcome one.
There are four distinct open worlds, each with plenty to explore and event types to participate in. The maps aren’t enormous by modern open-world standards, but they’re large enough to encourage exploration. Each world has its own identity, colourful visual style and theme, giving the game a welcome sense of variety as you progress.
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I particularly liked ‘Drifty Temples’, the fourth map unlocked. It’s an East Asian-inspired twilight setting with a good mix of environments, including neon-lit city streets, cherry blossoms and temples.
While the worlds in Hot Wheels Infinite Rush are visually creative, the roads themselves are often surprisingly conventional. Much of the maps are relatively flat stretches of terrain, and despite the colourful scenery, the actual act of driving between events can feel less memorable than it should. The fourth world introduces some elevation changes, but also narrows the driveable area considerably, reducing your ability to simply head off cross-country.
Scattered throughout these worlds are the series’ signature orange tracks. These sections are great fun, launching you between landmarks and providing a reminder of the franchise’s roots. But I never felt there were quite enough of them. I found myself wishing the game leaned harder into the absurdity and spectacle that Hot Wheels is capable of delivering.
Fortunately, the track editor returns and offers an impressive amount of freedom. Creative players will likely get plenty of mileage building the kinds of elaborate track creations that the core game occasionally feels reluctant to embrace.
Good Toys, Different Scale
One of the more surprising changes is the sense of scale. The Unleashed games worked well because you were essentially an actual toy car in a life-sized world. Perfectly normal real-world spaces like bedrooms and living rooms felt like sprawling playgrounds, reinforcing the fantasy that you were driving an actual Hot Wheels car.
Hot Wheels Infinite Rush‘s environments are instead effectively scaled to full-sized vehicles. As a result, you’re operating at much the same scale as any other open-world racing game. At times, you almost forget you’re playing a Hot Wheels game at all. It definitely loses some of the unique magic its predecessors captured.
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That said, the worlds themselves are colourful and imaginative, with an excellent presentation throughout. The cars look fantastic, too — easily among the most convincing digital recreations of real-world die-cast toy vehicles I’ve seen.
Easy to Pick Up, and Plenty to Do
I generally enjoy the game’s physics, particularly the way cars bounce, spin and crash into one another with very little punishment. It’s all very on-brand.
That said, the handling isn’t perfect. It’s reasonably forgiving and approachable, but there’s a lot of understeer baked in, seemingly to encourage use of the aggressive drift system. Thankfully, the drifting works, even if it feels more like an on-off switch than a smooth transition. It’s perfectly serviceable, but it never feels especially elegant.
Vehicles are split into four classes: Versatile, Speeder, Drifter and Titan. Each feels genuinely distinct and requires different approaches to boost management and cornering, adding some welcome depth beneath the accessible arcade handling.
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There’s plenty of content to keep you occupied, too. Players can take on numerous races and event types, alongside free-roam activities such as drift and speed stunts, tourist photo challenges, and a healthy number of collectibles. I had unlocked all four worlds and sampled most event types within just a few hours, but there was still enough variety and content to keep me occupied for around 10 to 15 hours.
Final Thoughts
Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is colourful, approachable and easy to enjoy. But I felt that it never quite capitalised on the full creative potential of the Hot Wheels licence. The foundations are solid, and the move to an open-world structure generally works, but Infinite Rush never quite reaches the heights its wonderfully imaginative licence suggests it could.
That’s not to say it isn’t fun. The driving is accessible, the worlds are pleasant to explore and the collectible-focused progression keeps you moving from one objective to the next. I can easily see Hot Wheels Infinite Rush becoming a favourite for younger players or families looking for a more relaxed alternative to the increasingly serious open-world racers on the market.
Quest Daily scores Hot Wheels Infinite Rush:
7.5/10
Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is coming to Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam on September 10th.
Early access to Hot Wheels Infinite Rush was supplied to Quest Daily by the publisher.
