We’re Going Back to Jakku in the Trailer for Star Wars: Galactic Racer – Exclusive Interview
An epic new Star Wars racing game was just announced at the 2025 Game Awards and we have everything you need to know directly from Fuse and Lucasfilm Games.
You can almost feel the Jakku sun beating down on your face as you round the bend, navigating between a downed Star Destroyer and what’s left of an AT-AT in the Graveyard of Giants.
The familiar location from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a popular haunt for scavengers like Rey in later years, has been transformed into an unsanctioned racetrack for the all-new video game Star Wars: Galactic Racer, just announced tonight at the 2025 Game Awards.
Along with the reveal of an exciting first trailer, which you can watch below, Fuse Games co-founder Matt Webster and VP and GM of Lucasfilm Games Douglas Reilly sat down with StarWars.com for a trailer breakdown — including a hint about that Sebulba stinger — and a closer look at the new characters, locations, and vehicles to come.
Racing DNA
Racing has been in the DNA of Star Wars storytelling from the start. A favorite hobby and inspiration for creator George Lucas, the sport became a central part of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which led to the creation of the fan-favorite classic game Star Wars: Episode I: Racer. “When a team with such amazing racing chops like Fuse proposed a new expression of racing in a galaxy far, far away, it was a true no brainer decision,” Reilly says. “One of the great things about Star Wars is that it can be a perfect fit for many genres and audiences. We are always looking for new and creative ways to revisit genres fans have enjoyed in the past and find unique expressions in the future.”
Webster and other members of the gaming studio are no strangers to Lucasfilm. “Lucasfilm Games has a long and successful relationship with many of the key leaders at Fuse Games from their time at Criterion, including their work on Star Wars Battlefront II Starfighter Mode,” Reilly notes. “In addition to the great work on our projects, they have been industry leaders in some of the most beloved racing franchises in Need for Speed and Burnout. I can’t think of any other studio better suited to bring Star Wars racing back to our fans.”
What’s Star Wars: Galactic Racer about?
In the first trailer, we meet a new character named Shade — “a lone racer with a dream of glory and revenge,” Webster hints, — coming down the ramp to join the paddock on Jakku. Look very closely and you may even see a flock of steelpeckers surveying the landscape! “Players will learn more about Shade as they progress through the game’s campaign. Your aim is to survive long enough to earn your shot at becoming an elite racing pilot,” Webster says. “Our races are high-stakes competitions where racers do everything they can to get to the front in the solo campaign and in our awesome multiplayer gameplay.”
The high-speed teaser shows racers on all types of landspeeders and speederbikes navigating locations like Jakku and Ando Prime. Of the latter, Webster notes, “It’s the backdrop to the brand-new skim speeder showing its unique handling properties as it cuts through the racing pack. This awesome image of a skim speeder highlights those different racing lines and handling characteristics in one shot. Skim speeders are vehicles that reward flowing lines and maintaining momentum, banking through corners and knife-edging through narrow gaps. We’re really excited to bring this new creation to life and we’re looking forward to sharing more about this new vehicle and other gaming details in future updates!”
This latest galactic racer expression will stand apart from its predecessors and other games in the genre. “We’ve drawn real inspiration from runs-based games so the player will have meaningful, consequential decisions to be making on how they chose their path to become an elite racing pilot — from the vehicle they choose to start with, the upgrade choices they make to create a build that really suits their playstyle and what events they select in determining their path to become champion of the League,” Webster says. “Along the way you’ll compete with rivals, journey to new planets, and master different classes of repulsor craft — or speeders — each with their own distinct capabilities.
“We have a range of racing repulsorcraft for players to discover in the game, each of which have unique handling characteristics to master,” Webster continues. “Speederbikes, for example, are fast and ferocious, you’ll be braking heavily into corners, really leaning in and then massive drops of acceleration as you power your way through the exit. Also notice that in many of our events, our different speeder classes race at the same time, with exciting physical interactions as those differing racing lines come together.”
Sebulba and Sentinel One
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is filled with new characters and locations, like Sentinel One revealed in the trailer for the very first time. “It’s home to a Skakoan listening station built on a vast planetary scale with huge antennas littering the landscape,” Webster reveals. “It’s also a toxic wasteland that’s been plundered for minerals with bright yellow rivers of acid that criss-cross the dark rocky terrain. These hazards inform unique racing tactics for players as the toxic fumes will interfere with your engines.”
And beyond Jakku, the trailer promises to reunite fans with the dastardly Dug who tried to cheat his way to the Boonta Eve Classic title against Anakin Skywalker — Sebulba. “There’s so much love for Sebulba on the team and across the Star Wars community,” Webster says. “There are particular reasons why he finds his way into our trailer as well as a detail in this shot that may lead to even more questions…the answers to which we’ll have to leave to another time!”
Chesko, Sebulba. We’ll be counting down the days until our next match when Star Wars: Galactic Racer arrives.
