The racing game genre boasts an extensive list of titles, from highly demanding simulators to family-friendly kart games, and everything in between. With a heritage that goes back several decades, motorsport games’ developers have become extremely good at conveying the feel of speed and handling, especially when you go all in with a wheel and pedals.
Alongside strategy games, racing games were among the first titles I ever played. I still remember having plenty of fun in Need for Speed 2, circling the Proving Grounds map in my McLaren F1. I also spent a good chunk of my free time playing MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3, though I never managed to become good. However, the first hit that cemented my love for racing games is undoubtedly the Need for Speed Underground series. These arcade-style games blended car tuning, high-speed racing, and a wide variety of cars, all inside a nicely designed map.
Plenty of racing games have emerged since these early days, including some that have surpassed their predecessors to become staples of the genre. In this feature, I discuss some of the best and most memorable entries, referencing the most iconic ones from each sub-category. That said, with titles dating back to the origins of video games, there is no shortage of good picks, meaning that choosing one means you have to leave another out. As always, we welcome you to share your favourite picks on our social media channels.
Burnout Paradise
Release date: January 22, 2008 | Developer: Criterion Games | Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Burnout Paradise comes from an era when many racing games prioritised fun over realism. Here, you weren’t asked to achieve the perfect lap time on a track, but rather to survive the countless attempts by your opponents to verify the accuracy of Newton’s fundamental laws of physics. The gameplay was completely unrealistic, but exceptionally fun. Basically, you raced from point A to B while smashing any opponent who dared to come close to you. All I wanted to do after finishing a race was to hop into the next one, and the game happily obliged.
Every race had its fair share of spectacular crashes, which, despite hours of play, never became boring. The sheer amount of accidents involving players and bystanders made Paradise City (the game’s location) look more like an open-air crash test facility than a city. Also, unlike many racing games, where shortcuts are optional, in Burnout, they’re a necessity and an integral part of the fun.
While there are some other top-quality entries in this series, I prefer Burnout Paradise due to its open-world design and great soundtrack. Nowadays, the remastered version has replaced the original, but the core game remains unchanged, just with prettier graphics. It’s a shame we haven’t seen a new Burnout for a while, but I guess it’s better not to rush it and fail.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Release date: November 15, 2005 | Developer: EA Black Box | Platforms: PC, PS2, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox, Xbox 360
Easily the finest Need for Speed title, the legendary Most Wanted mixed two great aspects of the series – fully-tuned cars and police chases. While Need for Speed: Underground 2 was fun to play, it lacked the thrill of being pursued by law enforcement. This wasn’t just decorative; getting caught multiple times meant you could lose your car permanently, which increased the stakes of each chase, especially when driving your favourite car.
And boy, there were plenty of nice cars to drive, from the Lamborghini Gallardo and Dodge Viper to the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren; there was no shortage of vehicles on which to spend your credits. In fact, this game brought us one of the most iconic cars of the series, the BMW M3.
Most Wanted felt like the perfect accompaniment to the Fast and the Furious movies, which were released a couple of years earlier. You could “experience” fast and fancy cars, tune them to your liking, and prove your skills, all from the comfort of your seat.
Unlike many other racing games, Most Wanted had a story where you had to defeat a list of challengers to claim back your lost BMW M3. While it wasn’t Oscar-worthy, there wasn’t much else like it at the time, and it was memorable enough to stick in my mind all these years later. The game’s soundtrack was also amazing, with songs like Styles of Beyond’s Nine Thou still giving me chills to this day. Despite its numerous attempts, EA never managed to recreate this balance.
Forza Horizon 5
Release date: November 9, 2021 | Developer: Playground Games | Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox One and Series
Currently representing the gold standard when it comes to arcade-style racing games, Forza Horizon 5 offers a pinch of realism to keep you on your toes. It has the best handling of any arcade-style racing game I’ve played, being simple enough to easily grasp, yet rewarding if you push the difficulty higher. Horizon 5 didn’t bring any groundbreaking changes – rather it just built on the legacy of its predecessors to perfect its recipe, while refreshing the setting.
This time around, you find yourself in the sunny atmosphere of Mexico. The game’s open world isn’t only massive, but it’s also constantly evolving over the seasons, giving you a taste of sun, snow, desert and rain forest. In one race, you’re cruising along the highway under sunshine, and in the next, you’re painting your car in mud inside a thunderstorm.
The game offers plenty of modes, including traditional racing on track, on road, off road, and everything in between, in addition to drifting and drag racing. There’s even a battle royale mode, although no guns are involved. The Hot Wheels DLC adds even more variety, with its bright orange tracks and gravity-defying loops.
On top of all this, Forza Horizon 5 offers a plethora of cars from which to choose, with over 900 vehicles available to collect, putting even the best other racing games to shame. Each of these cars is customisable, though to a lesser degree compared to Need for Speed. I especially like the track creation feature, which allows you to build your own races that you can then share with the community.
Colin McRae Rally
Release date: July 15, 1998 | Developer: Codemasters | Platforms: PC, PS1
If you’re old enough to remember Colin McRae Rally, the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the name is probably the co-pilot yelling “left three” and “right four over crest” while you struggle to keep the car on track. Its gameplay was grounded and felt realistic for its time, with challenging handling, especially in situations where weight transfer, traction, and braking mattered.
The game put an emphasis on precision control, especially while crossing loose surfaces such as gravel, mud, and snow, which provided a strong sense of risk vs reward. One wrong move could ruin your entire stage time.
Colin McRae Rally helped define the modern rally simulator that followed, offering authentic rally stages inspired by real-world locations and conditions. Considering the technology available at the time, making this game was quite a feat, conveying a realistic feel of speed and control.
Nowadays, EA Sports WRC is a great alternative, boasting 30km long stages of around 30km, putting you through a real test of endurance, and bringing you ever closer to the feel of the real thing. There are more than 600km of unique roads across 17 locations, not to forget a whole roster of modern and classic rally cars. If you can’t stomach the chunky graphics and old-school controls of Colin McRae Rally, it’s worth giving EA Sports WRC a try instead.
Forza Motorsport
Release date: October 10, 2023 | Developer: Turn 10 Studios | Platforms: PC, Xbox Series
Forza Motorsport is one of the best choices if you want pure, raw driving goodness. Unlike the Forza Horizon series, Motorsport is all about accurate vehicle representation, from the sheer sound of your engine to your driving behaviour in different meteorological conditions. As a racing simulator, Motorsport features an advanced physics and tyre simulation system that models the wear, grip, temperature, and pressure of your tyres, all of which affect vehicle handling and performance.
These aspects are further impacted by the game’s dynamic weather and daytime systems, which add another level of complexity to each race. For example, rain can start pouring down intensely when you’re mid-race, which changes how your car behaves on track. This means the tyre type you selected at the beginning is no longer right for your situation, forcing you to make an unplanned pit stop, wasting valuable time. Unlike arcade racers, where you can easily hold your lead, in Motorsport, correct planning can completely transform a race.
Car handling also feels smooth and wonderful, improving your feeling of immersion. Plus, if you can afford a racing wheel, gas pedals, and a speed shifter, you’re in for a treat. Bonus points if you own an ultrawide curved monitor that fills your field of view.
Assetto Corsa Competizione
Release date: May 29, 2019 | Developer: Kunos Simulazioni | Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC) is a hardcore racing simulator, offering an authentic driving experience that demands a high skill ceiling. This one is for purists who care about unfiltered racing, where mastering a vehicle is a long learning process. Everything from tyre temperatures and pressures to brake temperatures and aerodynamics is highly detailed. Weather is once again an important metric to consider before and during each race as well. Heck, even your fuel loadout requires a calculated approach, as each lap affects your consumption dynamically based on the track layout and your throttle usage.
This clearly isn’t a game you play when you’re looking for a casual dose of fun; its gameplay is unforgivable, requiring an expert level of knowledge and concentration. This is exactly what simulator fans want, though. As with Forza Motorsport, if you can get a wheel and gas pedal, you’ll greatly improve your experience. You can even plug in a VR headset for the ultimate immersive racing.
The game also features a roster of detailed tracks, recreated from their real counterparts using 3D scans. While some of these courses may be locked behind paid DLCs, the base selection is already solid and sufficient to enjoy the game. To put it simply, if you like realistic GT racing, you can hardly find a better game.
F1 25
Release date: May 30, 2025 | Developer: Codemasters | Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series
This one is for Formula 1 fans. F1 25 is the latest entry in this long-running game series, bringing improvements in grip and wear simulation, AI behaviour consistency, and circuit realism, which includes LIDAR-scanned tracks. That said, F1 25 doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel; it takes what worked in previous instalments and tweaks it a bit. The game is also graphically beautiful, with detailed cars and lighting, as well as support for Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS upscaling graphics tech on PC – it looks fantastic with path tracing enabled.
What I really like about F1 25 and the series in general is that you can tweak its difficulty to suit your skill. You can make it feel like an arcade racer or a simulator, though not to the level of some entries on this list. That said, when it comes to difficulty, the AI can give up a real fight, so don’t expect to become a champion right away.
Meanwhile, the career mode offers deep, structured progression, team dynamics, and driver rivalries, not to mention official tracks and teams. With all the drivers and cars from last year’s roster, it’s a no-brainer for any fan of this sport.
MotoGP 24
Release date: May 2, 2024 | Developer: Milestone | Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Switch
MotoGP 24 gives you two wheels that spin very fast, but it’s up to you to keep them straight. With this one, there is no room for error, handling is unforgivable, and the slightest delay in braking or speed misjudgement will remind you that sliding isn’t exclusive to skiing. With assists turned off, every corner becomes a challenge as you need to manage weight transfer and momentum sensitivity.
It’s further complicated through the addition of individual front and rear brakes that require gentle modulation, as well as weather changes. Combined, it all provides a challenging, yet rewarding, ride that encourages patience and experience.
That said, the game does offer some accessibility options that simplify newcomers’ lives without turning the game into an arcade-style racer. Overall, it’s a solid entry into the series and a must-play game if you love motorcycle racing.
Trackmania
Release date: July 1, 2020 | Developer: Ubisoft Nadeo | Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Trackmania is a time-trial racing game that’s easy to learn but extremely hard to master. Here, you don’t fight others directly; there are no AI opponents or real players with whom you can interact – all you see are the ghosts of participating players, meaning this game is free from toxic behaviours such as ramming. The goal is to perfect your track lap time and rise to the top of the leaderboard.
Gameplay focuses on speed conservation, drifting control, and momentum management, all of which are mandatory to enter even the top 1,000 ranking of each map. The game’s premise is simple: you have a track, and you need to cross it as fast as possible. There is no car tuning and no complicated mechanisms, just speed, braking, and drifting.
While it’s a highly arcadey type of game, you won’t hit the ground running as it requires a lot of dexterity to master its quirks. To crawl into the top places, you’ll need to master each track individually until you achieve pinpoint timing. This means endless repetition of the same track again and again, until you can drive it with your eyes closed. If doing the same thing over and over isn’t your thing, you may not like this one. However, if you’ll love it if you’re highly competitive.
The best part about Trackmania is the selection of community-made tracks, which can be really wild. From ramps that send you kilometres away just to drop you precisely back on the continuing track, to Hot Wheels-style loops that make you feel dizzy, the map makers’ creativity is astonishing. Trackmania is the type of game where you go in for a lap or two, but find yourself two hours later still chasing that last millisecond to climb onto the podium. While this formula can be found on pretty much any Trackmania title, I recommend sticking with the new one, as it has better developer support, plus an active community.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
Release date: June 21, 2019 | Developer: Beenox | Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PS5 + Xbox Series via backward compatibility
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a faithful remake of the 1999 original title, preserving a high-skill kart racing system while modernising the presentation and graphics. On top of the original game’s content, Nitro-Fueled also adds new characters and vehicles, as well as an online multiplayer mode. All playable characters have highly polished animations and unique looks that make them stand out from the rest.
The game is easy to pick up for casual players, but despite its childish graphics, it’s not an easy game to master. It requires a good amount of experience to learn when to drift in order to gain boost, and when to use it, allowing skilled players to maintain high speeds for longer. It’s like Mario Kart, but for those who don’t own a Nintendo console.
While there is a decent single-player campaign, Crash Team Racing is better enjoyed with friends. It offers a good mix of competitive play and fun moments, making for a treat at any gamer gathering.
Honourable mentions
Mario Kart
So much fun and frustration in equal measure, this series has provided immense fun from Super Mario Kart on the SNES to Mario Kart World on Switch 2. It’s not a serious driving simulator, but this slapstick racer makes for a great four-way multiplayer clash in your living room, with newbies getting a helping hand from bullets and golden mushrooms, as well as the ability to break the frontrunner’s lead with the most annoying weapon ever – that dreaded blue shell. It only didn’t make the main list because it’s exclusive to Nintendo hardware.
Wipeout 2097
What’s better than racing cars? Racing futuristic hovercraft spaceships, of course! With a kicking soundtrack featuring Orbital and FSOL, and incredible 3D graphics at the time, this sci-fi racer was astounding when it first came out in the mid 90s. Bonus points if you played it on PC with an original 3dfx Voodoo card. Fast Fusion on the Nintendo Switch 2 helps scratch that Wipeout itch if you want to play something similar today.
