All the best Star Wars stories – whether in movies, games, or books – all have one thing in common: they all draw from sources and inspirations beyond the franchise itself. The developers behind Star Wars: Galactic Racer seem to recognize that as well, as they’re building the game around a sports movie-style narrative that takes inspiration from the real-life post-World War II motorsports boom.
“We had an idea of the kind of sports story that we wanted to tell within the universe,” creative director Kieran Crimmins tells GamesRadar+ in an interview at Gamescom. “Because we were very confident in that, we then take that to our partners at Lucasfilm Games and say, ‘where would this fit and make sense?'”
That’s how the game’s post-Return of the Jedi setting was decided upon, with racers taking up the sport in the wake of the Galactic Civil War. “The key reference that we came upon was this post-war sports boom that happened in the real world as well. All these pilots with all these skills started doing hot rodding [and] drag racing, and there was this boom of entertainment post-war. That was the perfect place to frame the story.”
Star Wars was itself influenced by plenty of World War II films, and seeing that sort of influence wrap around with real post-war history helping shape a fictional post-war story is fascinating to see. Of course, arcade racing games aren’t often known for in-depth narratives, but the devs at Fuse Games want the story here to make the racing itself feel more dramatic and impactful.
“What story will make every single race feel more exciting? [What story] will make every single character in the race be worth smashing into the wall? If I’m going to get this moment of ‘I just crossed someone at the line,’ I need to care about the person I just crossed the line with, so that those feel far more rewarding,” Crimmins explains.
That’s also how the team built the game’s big antagonist. “I really wanted a despicable villain that would be really fun to beat, and that’s how we constructed Kestar Bool,” music and narrative director Nat Daw explains. “Someone who is arrogant and actually good at racing. He’s a terrible person, and he’s incredibly annoying, but he’s also really, really skilled as a racer.”
In other words, he’s a “classic sports villain,” Daw says, and that concept was “back in the original pitch. I think, especially in the sports movie genre, the satisfaction of going against characters like that is always something I really, really love, so I really wanted to bring that to the Star Wars galaxy.”