Since first releasing in 2022, open-world racing game CarX Street has gotten countless updates and pieces of new content, but the update it just dropped is one of its biggest yet. Titled Showdown, it adds a brand-new PvP team mode that pits street racers against pursuing law enforcement.
The mode can be played by up to 16 people at a time, eight on each team. On one side, street racers need to reach a designated area to earn points and then deliver them to a garage. On the other side, police officers are rewarded for neutralizing racers in several different ways, which we’ll cover in detail in a bit.
Each match is played in two rounds, with everyone randomly assigned to either the racers or police, then switching sides between rounds. So you’ll always play as a racer once and a police officer once. The racers have HP, and if their HP is brought down to zero, they lose all their undelivered points and respawn at the garage to try again.
Racers lose HP when they run into environmental objects or other cars, so you can’t drive recklessly. But speed is still very important. If a racer drives too slowly while police cars are nearby, their HP will gradually be drained. So you need to make use of your nitro boosts and consistently drive as fast as possible while still keeping your car under control.
While racers earn points for safely reaching certain parts of the map, police officers earn points for actions that prevent it. They can score points for ramming racers’ cars, arresting racers, or using their unique ability to deploy spike strips that puncture racers’ tires. Plus, they can get points for assisting their teammates, so if you ram a racer that’s later arrested by someone else, you’ll still get points. Police cars can also teleport between police stations scattered across the city, meaning they can strategize and cut off escape routes.
But the police aren’t the only ones with a trick up their sleeves: Racers are equipped with an EMP that can temporarily disable any police cars caught in its radius. Both the police’s spike strip and the racers’ EMP are on cooldown timers, so be careful not to waste them. And for the sake of a fair match, cars in this mode are restricted by class, and tire wear and fuel are both ignored. So it’s all about driving skill and strategy, not raw vehicle stats and durability. Each round lasts for about 10 minutes, and whichever team manages to score the most points after two rounds wins.
Developer CarX Technologies has said that the dev team dreamed of creating a cops-and-racers mode since before the game originally launched in 2022, but it was too labor-intensive and complex to develop in tandem with the open-world experience the rest of the game offers. And the inclusion of unique features and visual effects makes it clear how much work went into this mode. Police cars have flashing lights and sirens, arrests are accompanied by voice lines from a police radio channel, and collisions and EMP activations feature unique glitch-like effects.
The gameplay experience of this mode is in stark contrast to the rest of the game, which sees you travel around the fictional Sunset City and its outskirts, facing off against local racing clubs that each have their own unique identity and narrative. You fine-tune your car, from the body kit and brake discs to the engine and suspension, gradually upgrading so you can qualify to take on more difficult opponents.
A lot went into the development of that core gameplay loop, which then needed to be polished for each platform CarX Street released on. It came to mobile first in 2022, then PC in August 2024, then finally PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S earlier this year. Its multiplatform approach resulted in success, reaching more than 1 million sales across Steam and consoles. Once they had it successfully running on all platforms, the dev team was able to focus on development of the new mode, which started about six months ago with the first concepts and prototypes.
It was meant to feel unlike anything else in the game, and police chases were always the primary focus. However, after extensive internal testing, the dev team realized police chases alone weren’t enough. That’s how the unique abilities arose, resulting in the addition of spike strips and EMPs.
It’s safe to say that the result accomplishes the goal of introducing a mode with completely different gameplay, but this is far from the end of the game’s evolution. CarX Technologies has stayed engaged with its community and gets regular feedback that helps guide their updates and new content, and that won’t stop anytime soon. Based on that feedback, they’ve previously mentioned that their future plans include additional competitive multiplayer modes, a dedicated highway network added to the open-world map, and a full story campaign with quests.
On top of the new mode and other planned updates, CarX Street is also currently on sale on Steam and Xbox, and it just launched a special promotion on PlayStation as well. So there’s never been a better time to get behind the wheel. If you’d like to join the community, you can follow CarX Technologies on Instagram, X/Twitter, or Facebook. Or you can check out the official website to keep up with the latest info on all their games.
