Author: Antony Ingram
Photography and Video: Game Developers
Take a look around the roads and it’s clear retro is big business again, just as it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Renault has launched reimagined 5 and 4 models and there’s a Twingo on the way, Alpine has the A110, Ford the Mustang, the MINI and Fiat 500 are still going strong, and then there are cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 that clearly draw their spirit from the 80s, even if they’re resolutely modern.
Turns out, a similar thing is happening in gaming. Perhaps gamers have been worn out by enormous, sprawling “triple-A” titles from big developers that promise more than they deliver, and are desperate for a return to the simple and satisfying experience of games from 30-odd years ago?
The net result is a wave of new retro racers with their roots in racing games of the 80s and 90s, and visuals that wouldn’t look out of place on the original PlayStation, Super Nintendo, N64, or Sega Saturn.
Below we’ve rounded up ten such titles to have debuted in the last couple of years – everything from street racing to rallying, to pure arcade madness. They all play very differently, but all will be a blast from the past for gamers worn out on the latest Forza or Gran Turismo. We’ve included a link to each game on the Steam platform if you want to check them out for yourself.
Parking Garage Rally Circuit
If you didn’t know better, you’d think Parking Garage Rally Circuit was an authentic Sega Saturn title. It absolutely nails the pixellated look (enhanced by optional screen effects such as distortion and scan lines), but the premise – screaming around courses laid out in multi-storey car parks – is also the kind of silliness that used to make it to the shelves in actual videogame stores.
Impressively it’s the work of just a single developer, and it benefits hugely from their clear focus. The handling is perfectly judged, with drifting around corners the order of the day – not just for speed, but for the boosts needed to rocket down the next straight. It’s intuitive as soon as you get on track, which is a trick not many racing games achieve.
There’s up to eight-player multiplayer, which is utter chaos, and already a healthy community creating new tracks, so even you wear out the original content (and it’ll take a while, with plenty of arcade-style ‘beat your best time’ replayability) there should be plenty more to keep you occupied afterwards.
Tokyo Xtreme Racer
While some of the other games on this list blend in a healthy dose of 80s or 90s style with their gameplay, Tokyo Xtreme Racer (TXR) is more like the Porsche 911 or Alpine A110 of racers – inspired by the past but resolutely modern in execution. The TXR series has been around in one form or another since 1994 but its last release in its original run was back in 2007.
That changed in early 2025 when the series was revived by original developer Genki. Despite slick modern graphics and interfaces it’s otherwise entirely faithful to its predecessors, with the same high-speed racing action around Tokyo’s raised expressways, and the same system of goading other drivers into a race by flashing your headlights.
Handling is straightforward and easily accessible. You can’t just pin it everywhere, and the high speeds mean to get one up on your rivals, you’ll need to be clever with when to lift, brake, or use other traffic to your advantage. There’s a story for motivation too – you’ll meet other racers and face challenges at each step, while the car modification is nicely in-depth.
Aero GPX
The anti-gravity racer genre used to be a guaranteed winner: Nintendo players had access to the spectacular F-Zero series, while if you had a PlayStation, Wipeout was an obligatory purchase, with its achingly cool Designers Republic aesthetics and soundtracks from the likes of the The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy.
Then, like many things, it seemed to fall out of fashion, but is once again undergoing a bit of a revival – and Aero GPX is probably the best interpretation of the genre. It takes its cues most closely from F-Zero, with an emphasis on searing speed and vibrant graphics.
And boy, does it get it right. This game takes no prisoners – going quickly is easy, but to win you need fast fingers, great reactions, and a bit of course knowledge (gained through plenty of failures), otherwise you’ll find yourself flying off the edge or exploding after one too many hits of the barriers or clashes with other racers. Learn its ways though, and it’s deeply satisfying.
New Star GP
Recent official Formula 1 racing games have injected a little Drive to Survive-style drama with a story mode that sees you taking on the role of embattled driver facing antagonistic rivals, but they perhaps take themselves a little seriously – they’re a long way from the days of Murray Walker shouting “Williams Number One!”. New Star GP, with its 90s arcade-style graphics, is a little more whimsical.
Naturally, it’s a little easier to drop into and out of than traditional F1 titles, but there’s more depth here than you might expect. The career mode involves starting in the 1980s and working your way up, decade by decade, to the 2020s, with the shapes and performance of the cars, and the strangely familiar names of your rival drivers, changing along with them.
There’s a management aspect wrapped in, with the need to keep team personnel happy and upgrade your car as the seasons go on, but importantly the racing itself is solid – while simplistic, you still need some racing technique to win. The circuits are fun too – most are pleasingly reminiscent of the real-world locations they parody.
Night-Runners Prologue
Night-Runners Prologue is, as the name suggests, only a preview of a future full Night-Runners game as things stand, but as extended demos go it’s impressive, and hits all the right retro notes. The premise here is similar to Tokyo Xtreme Racer, breaking out onto the night-time streets of a Japanese city and challenging others to race.
Graphically though it’s more overtly retro than TXR – there’s a kind of aged VHS look applied to the entire game, menus and all, like you’re watching a video recorded by a street racer back in the 1990s. It’s enormously atmospheric, the deliberate lack of polish making everything feel a little more grungy and down-to-earth than TXR.
While unlicenced, the handful of cars currently in the game are all knowing nods to real-world models, and there’s the obligatory customisation element. Action is fast-paced with a real sense of speed, helped by the dark and moody visuals, but if you’ve got a creative streak, the photo mode is also fun, and the ability to walk around your garage and the car meet spots adds to the immersion.
Old School Rally
The clue’s in the name with this rallying game, which visually at least wears inspiration from the original Colin McRae Rally game on the PS1, and to a lesser extent Sega Rally, on its sleeve. The graphics are very close indeed to those of the original Colin McRae game so there’s an instant hit of nostalgia as soon as you find yourself on a stage.
It falls a fair short of playing like those classic rally games, with handling that’s far less satisfying and intuitive, and doesn’t give you much sense of fighting with the road surface. Braking is overly sharp and beyond the McRae-style visual sheen, the courses aren’t as varied as Colin McRae Rally either, and the car sounds are a little bland.
It’s not all bad though: the actual selection of cars and courses is pretty generous (the cars in particular are much more varied than those early McRae titles), and the way your vehicles are presented like a shelf of diecast models is a neat design touch. To the developer’s credit, it’s not expensive to pick up either (currently £7.22 on Steam), and the game is improving all the time, so one day it could well be a true homage to those 90s rallying games.
Easy Delivery Co.
Okay, Easy Delivery Co. isn’t strictly a racing game, but it’s definitely retro and there’s definitely some fast (ish) driving. Yes, you’ll be delivering… well, various things, in a picturesque if rather snowy little town, and while there’s no real time limit to your deliveries requiring you to push things to the limit, the urge to tear around town in your little pickup truck is too great.
It’s part of a genre that’s becoming known as “cosy” games. There’s no real jeopardy beyond the cold temperatures, which will see you expire and respawn if you spend too long outside, so the emphasis instead is on pottering around, enjoying the drive, zoning out a bit, and slowly piecing together the story.
That story is as yet unknown, since Easy Delivery Co. is currently available only as a demo, but there’s a sense there might be something sinister going on. The PlayStation-style graphics have an eerie feel thanks to the fog, the snow and the occasional darkness, but it’s also very charming, and the eerie, foggy environment and dithered textures are deliberate here, rather than limited by the hardware like the PS1 titles it visually apes.
Drive Rally
Drive Rally has no direct predecessors in the racing game space but it definitely has the feel of a classic arcade game – there’s a little Sega Rally, a little Daytona USA, and character design that looks straight out of the Dire Straits Money for Nothing video, albeit a great deal smoother.
There’s a cartoonish look to the cars too, though they’re clearly inspired by real-world models, with clones of famous rally cars like the Audi Quattro and Toyota Celica, among others. Courses are heavily stylised, with gaming tropes like the far eastern-style circuit having a Fuji-like mountain on the horizon, and a US track set in what looks like an old mining town.
Less appealing are the over-the-top arcade-style pacenotes which include not just directions but messages of encouragement from your co-driver – with some exaggerated accents that would seem a little much even for a 1970s comedian. The handling though is pretty good, with some momentum to all the cars and different behaviour depending on which car you’re in, and on what kind of surface.
Super Woden GP 2
Remember Micro Machines? Probably the best-known top-down racing game, it curiously never really spawned any imitators (though the first few Grand Theft Auto games took birds-eye-view style in a different direction). Every now and then though, the top-down racer’s natural evolution, that of the isometric racer, makes a comeback.
Super Woden GP2 is one of those games, letting you race in a series of different motor sports, all from a drone-style sky-high view. For some that perspective can take them out of the action, but when done well, as it is here, it can be just as satisfying as more traditional helmet cam, bonnet cam, and chase cams.
There’s a warm glow to the graphics that feels rather nostalgic and the different courses, surfaces, and weather conditions are all surprisingly immersive given your car is so far away. Cars behave in a drift-like style, much like those old Micro Machines games in fact, so it’s very much an arcade title, but one where your racing line still really matters.
Victory Heat Rally
Victory Heat Rally is an old-school arcade racer and proud of it. The sprite-style graphics hit your eyeballs like some of the most vibrant SNES-era racers (think a cross between Mario Kart and Outrun), albeit with a lot more polish (and the resolution to work on modern systems). Not everyone gets that balance right, but the ‘2.5D’ style works here.
Like the best arcade racers, the speed never really lets up either – unless you crash, of course. Each course presents its own challenges and has a very different feel, another sense that the likes of Mario Kart and Outrun have inspired this 2024 game.
Another thing in common with some of those older racers is the way you pick a particular racer, rather than just a car – the selection of 12 stylised characters each has their own strengths and weaknesses, though you can still tune your car a little more to your visual and performance tastes. There’s four-player multiplayer on offer too.
Craving more nostalgia?
For fans of all things retro, RADwood is the ultimate celebration of cars from the 80s and 90s. From the Ferrari Testarossa to the DeLorean DMC-12, RADwood brings together the most iconic cars from that era.
