Tonight’s PlayStation State of Play broadcast provided our best look yet at the upcoming Star Wars: Galactic Racer — including the confirmation of another character first seen in Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.
Yes, Galactic Racer will feature the triumphant return of Ben Quadinaros, the Boonta Eve Podrace participant who exploded on its starting line. Somehow he has survived (and is still racing) all the way through to Galactic Racer’s setting post-Return of Jedi.
Since his appearance in The Phantom Menace, Quadinaros has only been glimpsed occaisonally throughout Star Wars canon, though later years apparently saw him become a rival to fellow podrace pilot Sebulba — who also appears in Galactic Racer, now with a beard.
Today’s trailer also showed Galactic Racer’s protagonist Shade taking part in a “friendly exhibition race” on a planet covered in what looks to be yellow acid. In fact, there isn’t much friendly about it, as we see several speeders smashed up as part of the proceedings.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is being built by Fuse Games, a British studio founded by veterans from Burnout and Need for Speed team Criterion Games — and there’s definitely something to those games’ racing in today’s footage.
The trailer also gives us a glimpse at Galactic Racer’s narrative content, as Shade gets threatened during a scene with a rather unhappy alien who suggests they’d like to freeze you in carbonite.
Alas, there’s no further clue for now on when Star Wars: Galactic Racer will arrive, as it still is listed with a frustratingly vague 2026 release date for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
For much more, catch up with everything announced during Sony’s State of Play broadcast right here.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
