I used to love building Hot Wheels tracks with my son. Orange plastic snaking across the living room floor, loops that never quite held together, and at least one car that always ended up under the sofa. He’s grown out of it now, but the memories linger, and they were enough to get me properly excited when Hot Wheels Infinite Rush rolled into view.
The game comes from Milestone and Mattel. Milestone made Hot Wheels Unleashed and Unleashed 2: Turbocharged, both built around tracks, but this time the tracks are gone. In their place is an open world scaled down to Hot Wheels size, split across four themed islands. Wheelswood is a die-cast city of skyscrapers and narrow side streets. Tentacle Bay swaps the concrete for beaches and clear water. Gearville is a dusty desert of factories and canyons, and Drifty Temples is all cherry blossom and ancient pagodas. A system called The Launcher lets you sky-jump between them without the need to actually do the driving, which you’d think would be counter-intuitive but is a bit of a time saver.
Each island is ruled by a Rush Master. You work through events to unlock their challenge, beat them, and claim their car and their title. Beat all four and you’re crowned the one true Rush Master, which is a lovely thing to be able to say at parties and will almost certainly make you an absolute hit with whichever gender you choose to aim to impress. There’s no story to get in the way, just you, a garage and an excuse to go fast. That’s quite cool, but some context to things might have added a little intrigue.
Races are only part of the picture. Daredevil challenges have you chasing special cars spotted in traffic and adding them to your collection if you win. Delivery Stunts ask you to get a car somewhere quickly while every bump takes its toll. Tourist challenges hand you photo prompts and send you to scenic spots, which makes a nice breather when you’ve been flooring it for an hour. Then there’s Stuntman, where the whole point is smashing as much of the scenery as possible. It’s a bumper-first-through-the-scenery-em-up (it’ll catch on), and it’s every bit as daft and satisfying as it sounds.
Here’s where the cracks show, though. The open world is cool, but it’s also restrictive. You still have to stick to certain paths, and you can’t go fully cross-country the way you can in The Crew or other open world racers. Having a toy-sized map to play in raises the expectation that you can tear across it however you like, and the game doesn’t quite deliver on that. It also feels a little empty at times. There’s plenty to do, but between events the world can feel more like a backdrop than a place.
The age target plays a part in how it feels too. This is clearly aimed at a younger crowd, and that makes it a little less engaging for me than something like Forza Horizon. That’s not a criticism of the game for doing what it set out to do. I’m just not the audience it’s most interested in.
What picks it all up is the cars. There are more than 150 of them, split across four classes: Versatiles, Titans, Drifters and Speeders. Each handles differently and has its own upgrades. The roster mixes classic Hot Wheels originals with real-world brands, and Ferrari makes its Hot Wheels game debut here. You earn new ones through events and challenges, and you can customise them right down to the wheels. Being able to collect such a huge range genuinely excites me, and it’s the thing that kept me coming back. If you’d rather make your own fun, there’s a track creator too, and you can add AI opponents to your creations by placing action markers. As someone who spent far too many evenings building tracks on the carpet, that one hit home.
Friends and family aren’t left out either. Split-screen supports up to four players, and there’s online multiplayer with cross-play on everything except Switch 2. I’m all in on split screen gaming, and being able to smash into others sit shoulder to shoulder with me adds a really cool element of fun.
Generally though, Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is a fun, colourful game that’s held back by an open world that’s more restrictive and emptier than it first appears. The sheer novelty of the thing, and the thrill of filling a garage with tiny cars, give it a lift it wouldn’t otherwise have. It’s not a Forza Horizon rival, and it’s not trying to be. But if you grew up pushing little cars around the carpet, or you’ve got kids who do, there’s a lot of fun to be had here.
Reviewed on PC
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