Best racing games on PS4 & PS5
Rev your engine for our fast-track rundown of racing games available for your inner speed demon
Kart racers
Put your foot down and powerslide to victory in lively fantasy worlds.
KartRider: Drift
Developer: Nexon America
The speedy summary: Customize and race in style
Players: 8 online
KartRider: Drift brings the hugely popular multiplayer racing franchise to PlayStation players for the first time. This free-to-play arcade racer is a living, online game that keeps things fresh with new karts, characters, skins, tracks and customisation options, as well as major seasonal content drops.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fuelled
Developer: Beenox
The speedy summary: Family-friendly fun
Players: 1-4 offline, 2-8 online
A karting classic remastered for PS4, if you’re after instantly accessible, devil-may-care racing, Crash is the only madcap marsupial you need. Featuring a colourful range of whacky characters from Crash’s cheerful sister Coco Bandicoot to the nefarious Doctor Neo Cortex, there are plenty of power-ups, personality, and powerslides for up to eight online players to enjoy.
Team Sonic Racing
Developer: Sumo Digital
The speedy summary: Cartoony racing with a video game favourite
Players: 1-4 offline, 2-12 online
The iconic blue blur isn’t averse to giving his speedy feet a rest, so why not join him and 14 of his friends on the raceways? Taking the kart racing template and adding a Sonic spin with colourful power-ups and themed tracks, this isn’t just a game for fans of Sega’s spikey mascot – families unfamiliar with Sonic will feel welcome too, thanks to easy-to-learn controls and customizable options to tailor your fun.
Realistic simulators
Know the difference between brake fade and torque? Then these are the games for you.
Gran Turismo 7
Developer: Polyphony Digital
The speedy summary: The Real Driving Simulator
Players: 1-2 offline, 2-20 online
Marking the 25th anniversary of the legendary franchise, Gran Turismo 7 delivers a staggering collection of game modes to suit every taste, be it casual racer, competitive collector, designer or photographer. Find your line in fan-favourite modes like Driving School or the GT Campaign and buy, tune, race and sell your way through a rewarding solo campaign unlocking new cars and challenges.
F1® 23
Developer: Codemasters
The speedy summary: The official F1 experience
Players: 1-2 offline, 2-20 online
Be the last to brake in the official videogame of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship™. A new chapter in the thrilling "Braking Point" story mode delivers high-speed drama and heated rivalries. Race wheel-to-wheel at new Las Vegas and Qatar circuits and earn rewards and upgrades in F1 World.
DIRT 5
Developer: Codemasters
The speedy summary: A bold and amplified off-road racer?
Players: 1 offline, 2-8 online
Let loose in DIRT 5 with a star-studded Career, four-player split-screen, Playgrounds creator mode and more. Blaze your trail on global tracks, covering gravel, ice, snow and sand with cars ranging from rally icons to trucks and GT heroes. Race on over 70 routes across 10 global locations - from New York's frozen East River, to the glimmer of Norway's Northern Lights.
Project CARS 3
Developer: Slightly Mad Studios
The speedy summary: Fine-tuned by professional racing drivers
Players: 1 offline, 2-20 online
The third instalment of Slighty Mad Studios driving sim adds more tracks and cars to the ever-growing roster alongside 120 track layouts from a worldwide array of locations. Project CARS 3 also adds a brand new and deeply rewarding career mode, innovative new tyre modelling for more responsive and realistic handling and an expanded online multiplayer experience.
GRID Legends
Developer: Codemasters
The speedy summary: An intense, in-depth motorsports experience
Players: 1 offline, 2-22 online
Race, upgrade and customize every one of the largest ever GRID car rosters, from classic tourers to single-seaters, to big rigs. Compete on over 130 routes including real circuits like Brands Hatch and Indianapolis, historic GRID venues and new locations like London and Strada Alpina - as well as much more to be revealed.
Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 2
Developer: Milestone S.r.I.
The speedy summary: Live the Supercross fantasy
Players: 1 offline, 2-12 online
Your dreams of becoming a Supercross champion get a little closer in this adaption of America’s fastest growing motorsport, which lets you build a high speed career full of intense training, glamorous sponsors, and fiercely competitive rivals. Customize your rider and bike, then start from 250SX and make your way to the star-studded 450SX series where it’s all or nothing. 2018 champion Jason Anderson and a number of Supercross superstars are waiting – so put your foot down.
Open world racing
Break free and travel wherever you want in these liberating racers.
Need for Speed™ Heat
Developer: EA Gothenburg
The speedy summary: Blockbuster action driving
Players: 1 offline, 2-16 online
Hustle by day and risk it all at night. Need for Speed Heat is a white-knuckle street racer where the rule of the law fades as the sun starts to set. By day, Palm City hosts the Speedhunter Showdown, a sanctioned competition where you earn Bank to customize and upgrade your high-performance cars. At night, ramp up the intensity in illicit street races that build your reputation, getting you access to bigger races and better parts.
The Crew 2
Developer: Ubisoft Ivory Tower
The speedy summary: Exhilarating vehicle switching racing
Players: 1 offline, 2-8 online
Don’t limit yourself to just four wheels in American motorsports. The Crew 2 gives you the chance to dominate the land, air, and sea with a massive variety of exotic cars, bikes, boats, and planes to race with. You have to master them all in an adrenaline-pumping competition across the United States, where you must pledge your loyalties to one of four different families to determine your racing approach: street and pro racers, off-road experts, and freestylers.
Arcade fun
Fast, furious, and frantic – these games don’t let up on the action.
WipEout Omega Collection
Developer: Sony XDev, Clever Beans & EPOS Game Studios
The speedy summary: Flying into the future
Players: 1-2 offline, 2-8 online
Few futuristic racing games have reached the thrill-a-minute heights of the WipEout series, and Omega Collection truly fired the critically acclaimed PlayStation mainstay into a shiny new age. Bringing back 26 reversible tracks, 46 unique ships, and nine game modes from WipEout HD, WipEout Fury, and WipEout 2048, this PS4 remaster offers a face-melting sensation of speed with 60 frames per second visuals and a PlayStation VR mode to put you directly in the cockpit of a top of the range anti-gravity machine.
Trackmania Turbo
Developer: Nadeo
The speedy summary: Outlandish full throttle fun
Players: 1-16 offline, 2-16 online
Not many games in the genre can boast of having over 200 different tracks, but Nadeo’s arcade racer doesn’t stop there, giving you traditional canyons to drift through one second, before launching you into high-flying, rollercoaster style magnetic courses the next. And thanks to a versatile track editor, you can customize Trackmania Turbo to be as wild as you want. There’s even the option to race using PlayStation VR if you want to get up close and personal.
Trials Rising
Developer: RedLynx
The speedy summary: Motocross madness fantasy
Players: 1-4 offline, 2-4 online
Bike racing doesn’t have to be realistic, as the physics-bending Trials Rising proves with outrageous flair. Perform madcap stunts such as backflipping off the Eiffel Tower, speed through snowstorms on Mount Everest, and blitz around the Great Wall of China – just make sure you look more stylish than your opponents. And if you want to wind down (or get wound up), the hilarious Tandem Bike option lets you and a friend try to control one bike with two riders.
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