Recently, I’ve been keeping track of an upcoming game that I really can’t seem to put my finger on. Hot Wheels Unleashed is a weird racing title based on the plastic cars and tracks that you can buy and put together in real life. I’ve never really been into these things because the sets seem to be little more than a track leading to a jump, and that’s it. They’re also expensive, and I’ll be damned if I’m spending money on a piece of plastic over a game. However, the upcoming game looks like it could be a real hit, but I’m just not sure. I’m going to go through it here to try to help you understand why this is.
The basic premise of the game is that you play as a Hot Wheels car and drive it around tracks. You can build your own but also take part in races across pre-built ones. There are AI racers to beat, and obstacles that stop you on the track. I’m not sure if you’re able to create these obstacles like the weapons in Mario Kart, but my gut says you can’t. So what we’re left with is a very basic racing game about racing tiny collectible cars.
The other side of this is, of course, collecting Hot Wheels cars. There are 66 unique cars at launch across all sorts of brands, including real world car manufacturers and fake ones like Batman. This is where I think the game will be more appealing. I can see players working incredibly hard to unlock all the cars, owning every single one and putting together their massive collection. That collection is going to grow with every update, and I know this because there are lootboxes. You wouldn’t make a game with lootboxes without having an expansion in mind.
Ultimately, I think Hot Wheels Unleashed will be a hit, but it’s missing something. Having not played it, I could be totally wrong. But for me, the game is lacking that competitive edge that games like Mario Kart and Rocket LEague have. I don’t see an eSport developing around this. Instead, it’ll be more of a quiet game you play every day to try to build up that collection and have in the background.