HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush · published
Hello everyone! I’m Domenico Celenza from Milestone, the Game Director of HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush, and I’m excited to welcome you to the Beyond the Track: The Dev Logs, a deep dive series dedicated to showcasing the most exciting features of HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush. Over the next few months, I’ll be guiding you through everything the game has to offer, with a sneak peek at what’s coming on September 10. This first episode focuses on free-roaming and the new possibilities the game brings to the table.
After the release of the two Hot Wheels Unleashed™ titles, we wanted to explore a new dimension. In previous games, the Hot Wheels cars were racing in a real, human-sized world. In HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush, we chose to shift the perspective completely and create a Hot Wheels-sized world like never seen before. This affected not only the scale of each object, but also the materials and the world's overall look and feel. We are very pleased with the final result, which strikes a strong balance between a plastic, diorama-like aesthetic with the iconic Hot Wheels orange tracks, playsets and hotspots. We wanted to create a world that encourages exploration in free-roaming mode. It’s all about finding new ways to have fun and interact with the environment, going way beyond racing.Transitioning to a world built entirely at Hot Wheels diecast scale really changed the way we approached track design. In the Hot Wheels Unleashed games, we were racing in closed, human-sized spaces, like museums and warehouses. In some of those settings, the roof was the limit: you could race through vents, over tables, and past shelves, while still seeing the whole room around you. But in HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush we are completely out in the open! Track design had to become much more grounded, focusing on streets and the landscape. Don't get me wrong, you’ll still blast through orange loops, make massive jumps and turns. But by keeping the core action closer to street level, you get a much better look at the traffic, the environment, and the sheer scale of the world.When designing the four islands of HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush, our main goal was to offer players as much freedom as possible within a diverse and visually striking world. Each island has been built from the ground up with its own distinct identity, featuring unique topography, structural layouts, tailored lighting, and specific environmental atmospheres. We deeply studied their design to balance realistic landscapes with a tangible, toy-like feel, ensuring that every island offers a fundamentally different driving experience.To enhance this natural variety and inject the true Hot Wheels spirit, we integrated iconic Mattel playsets into each environment. Whether you are navigating the skyscraper-lined streets of Wheelswood under the gaze of a giant ape, exploring the wild beaches and dinosaur fossils of Tentacle Bay, braving the canyons and mechanical hazards of Gearville, or drifting through the neon-lit shrines of Drifty Temples, each environment feels like a completely self-contained world. The massive boss playsets are spread across the world to anchor each island's theme, and we can’t wait for you to discover them!When it comes to things to do, HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush splits the action into two main pillars: campaign events and free-roaming activities. The campaign events (which I will explain to you in a later episode) are the backbone of your progression: they bring you straight to the starting grid of specific tracks, where you have to beat different game modes to unlock new events, new islands and move forward. Meanwhile, free-roaming activities serve as the perfect complement to exploration, packing the map with optional content to discover at your own pace. While not strictly necessary for campaign progression, they are essential for expanding your car collection and, above all, keeping the gameplay dynamic and engaging.The world is absolutely packed with a wide variety of them, all scattered across islands and each built to test a totally different skill. For starters, you have the Stunts, which are all about driving through gates while pulling off precise actions to reach a final portal, like hitting a certain number of drift combos or maintaining a high average speed. Then you have Find the Flame, a pure navigation challenge where you have to quickly reach a flame highlighted on the map. It’s often placed in tricky, elevated, or hard-to-reach spots, forcing you to think creatively to find the most efficient route.If you want higher stakes, you can tackle a Delivery. This is a tense transport mission where you have to drive a borrowed car to the island’s dealership. It’s a race against the clock, meaning you have to be fast while also driving as clean as possible around the trafficked roads. If you deliver it fast enough, that car is permanently yours to keep in your garage. For something louder, there's the Stuntman challenge, which is easily the most explosive mode of the bunch. It takes full advantage of our new destructible environment system, asking you to smash as many objects as possible within a strict time limit. And finally, if you want to take it easy, the Tourist activities focus on landmarks. You’ll get specific guidelines about one of the hotspots and you just need to use the in-game photo mode to find the location and snap a picture following those directions.For players who love to explore every hidden corner, the islands are also filled with unique secrets. Exploring thoroughly is highly rewarding, as tracking down these collectibles will unlock Hot Wheels cars to add to your roster. You can hunt for Gears, with 300 of these small icons hidden across each island, or look for the distinctive, glowing Hot Wheels Logos that require some clever pathfinding and platforming to reach. There are also Stickers tucked away in the most secret corners of the map, which you collect by capturing them through the photo mode to fill up your sticker book.The best part is that each of these activities can be tackled with any Hot Wheels you choose. Some will naturally be more suitable for certain challenges than others but finding that perfect balance is part of the fun. Also, many of these challenges feature a global leaderboard where you can compete against players from all over the world.This wraps up our first episode but stay tuned – we have a lot more to share in the coming weeks. And don’t forget that HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush will be available from September 10, with Early Access beginning September 7, on PlayStation®5, XBOX Series X|S, Nintendo Switch™ 2, ROG XBOX Ally, ROG XBOX Ally X, and PC via Steam, Microsoft and Epic Games Store. You can check out all the available editions on our website and pre-order the game today!Next time we’ll be diving into the game’s progression and vehicle types. See you in the next installment from Beyond the Track: The Dev Logs!