Hot Wheels Unleashedis shaping up to be aHot Wheelsgame like none before it. It is more than just a racing game, but a love letter to theHot Wheelsfranchise as a whole, capturing just what it was like to play with the toys. Previous Hot Wheels games have provided traditional arcade racing experiences, featuring some of the franchise’s iconic vehicles, but few have successfully captured the spirit and creativity of the toys themselves.
At the beginning of 2021,Hot Wheels Unleashedwas announced, and it immediately looked like something special. Developed by Milestone, known most recently for its work on theMotoGPandRideseries,Hot Wheels Unleashedis designed to be a fun, arcade racing title. Gameplay doubles down aesthetically and mechanically on what it means to be a part of theHot Wheelsbrand. Game Rant spoke with Milestone’s Federico Cardini, Lead Game Designer onHot Wheels Unleashed, about how the game’s art direction, Track Builder, and car selection capture theHot Wheelsexperience.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed’s Toy Aesthetic
For gamers who have playedHot Wheelsgames in the past,Hot Wheels Unleashedmay be a stark contrast to what has come before. From thefirstHot Wheels Unleashedgameplay trailer, the game hasn’t looked like a standard racing title. The cars don’t look like real cars — they look like the toys one can buy from the store. Players aren’t racing through icy glaciers, sandswept ruins or some other fantastical environment — they are racing through someone’s garage, or through a skatepark.
For the team at Milestone, these design elements are at the root ofHot Wheels Unleashed’s development. When asked about the toyness ofHot Wheels Unleashed, Cardini said, “Since the beginning, during our initial brainstorming, the goal was clear: we wanted to make aHot Wheelsgame with realHot Wheelsdie-cast cars, not something using real cars withHot Wheelsstickers on them.” This distinction indicated by Cardini can be seen by simply looking atpreviousHot Wheelstitles; while those games' cars are taken from theHot Wheelscollection, generally speaking, they are meant to look realistic, as if someone inside is actually driving them.
A precise example would beForza Horizon 3’sHot WheelsDLC, which addedHot Wheelsvehicles and track pieces to the game’s overworld. The gorgeous game features impressive looking cars set against a luscious and relatively lifelike Australian environment. As such, the addedHot Wheelscars retain their signature designs, but were aesthetically changed to look natural against the game’s overall realistic art design.Unleashed’s die-cast cars would look out of place in a game likeForza Horizon 3, but they look right at home inUnleashed.
Track Building in Hot Wheels Unleashed
This philosophy emphasizingHot Wheels' toyness does not solely pertain to the cars, but toUnleashed’s other features as well, like the Track Builder. Players can create their own custom tracks by stretching, bending, curving and ultimately connecting dozens of those iconic orange pieces withUnleashed’s robust Track Builder. Furthermore, players are able to make tracks in any ofUnleashed’s environments like the Skyscraperand Garage environments. Cardini spoke about the importance ofUnleashed’s Track Builder:
“The track builder came very early in the development process. Actually, it was one of the first parts of the game to be created. And this is because, in our minds, you can’t do a Hot Wheels game without a track builder; building a track is a fundamental part of the experience when playing with Hot Wheels.”
As Cardini indicates, it was essential to have the Track Builder, espeically if the game was committing to the toy-aesthetic in its other areas.
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Every level that ships withHot Wheels Unleashedwas designed using the Track Builder, a strong indication of the tool’s power. Designing a tool that is both powerful enough for a game designer, but intuitive enough for the player, was no easy feat for Milestone. Explaining the process, Cardini elaborates, “The development of the track builder took around two years and we created it with both our team of developers as well asHot Wheels Unleashed’s players in mind.” Coincidentally, the mode is reminiscent ofForza Horizon 4’s Stunt Track Builder, thoughUnleashed’s mode is much more expansive.
Hot Wheels Unleashed’s Car Selection
As with most racing titles, one of the most important aspects is the vehicle selection. On one hand, there are cases like inGran Turismo 5’s selection of over 1,000 cars, an unparalleled collection resulting in minute differences between each vehicle. On the other hand are games likeDirt 5, which launched with only 63 cars that are spread across 13 different classes.Hot Wheels Unleashedfits into this latter category, offering a solid assortment of iconic vehicles, each with their own specifications, making no one car the same.
Hot Wheels Unleashedboasts over 60 cars to choose from at launch, with many more on the way through post-release content. Milestone handpicked every vehicle based on which ones theHot Wheelscommunity appreciated most. Despite the magnitude of how manyHot Wheelshave been produced over the years, it actually wasn’t that hard to choose which cars made it into the game, according to Cardini. “This part of the game was a pretty easy task, I have to admit, since many people in the team have been a part of theHot Wheelscommunity since they were kids,” they explained.
From a design standpoint, no two cars look the same, and it is immediately clear that these are toy cars, not actual ones. For example, there is the “Veloci Racer,” a car shaped like a velociraptor, the “Buns of Steel,” a truck with a cheeseburger on the back, and even theBatmobile, which is just one of the game’s many crossover vehicles.
At the same time, not all the cars are that over-the-top, with vehicles from real manufacturers like the Ford Mustang GT or the Audi R8 Spyder, but even these look like replica toys of famous vehicles, and not the actual cars themselves.Hot Wheels Unleashedis a game about racing with toy cars and not toys as cars, and that is something to be excited about.
Hot Wheels Unleashedlaunches September 30 on for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
