[Pax East 2016] Racers:Dirt Preview

Inspired by top down arcade style racing games, Racers: Dirt takes a different turn in terms of movement. Instead of featuring the quick twitchy driving that most arcade racers aim for, here turning is almost impossible unless you do one thing, drift! Drifting is at the heart of what makes Racers: Dirt great.

Diving into turns and starting a drift feels incredibly satisfying. Even when you mess up and leave the track, the way the car reacts on the different terrain allows a player to decide that maybe running off track in that turn is actually the best way to handle it. The demo on the show floor featured 3 different modes, but each utilized drifting in some way or another. Drifting gains the player nitro, which in a normal race is the key to passing cars and doing even better drifts to earn even more nitro. A drift challenge sees the player alone on a track seeking to score above a certain threshold to place in the race. Lastly was an elimination style race where players need to build up nitro and then slam into other racers while using it, hopefully knocking them out of the race and scoring the player points.

Everything shown was also playable in a two player split screen mode. Korean developer 21c.Ducks is hoping to have the game out on the Playstation 4 by the end of April.