Silent’s Blog

The Indie Games Corner

As time goes on, there are increasingly many interesting indie racers that I follow and talk about. As I started losing track of some individual games and people started asking me for recommendations, my own list of noteworthy games can help everyone!

I wish to highlight any kinds of games: released, in development, even unnamed and unannounced projects that show promise. I played most of the games on those lists (the ones that have a full or a demo release), and if I have not, I make it clear in the description. I think all games on this list deserve a shout-out, because even if I don’t love the goal of each and every one of them, I think they are all done well and will inevitably interest someone looking for something to play.

“Released” and “Demo & Early Access” games are sorted by their release dates, with the most recent games on top. “Upcoming” games are sorted alphabetically.

Last update:

This page contains affiliate links (marked with an asterisk*), meaning I get a commission for every purchase made through them.

Racing games

Strictly racing/rally games, nothing else.

Released

Driving Rogue

A roguelike arcade racer, dubbed “Car-latro”, where the player gets to traverse dense city environments drifting, avoiding traffic, and racing rivals along the way. In each run, cars are upgraded with random cards so the results are equally dependent on skill and luck.

Steam, X/Twitter
Race Jam

A cel-shaded arcade racer full of 90s references and a load of game modes, stunting, customization, and more. While I personally don’t vibe with the fact that the game is trying to do “everything” and includes every random 90s reference you can think of, the driving itself is quite nice, everything in the game is done competently, and it has a lot of content, so those who like this style will have fun.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Exo Rally Championship

A brutally realistic off-road racing game, where racing is held by remote-controlled rovers on unexplored planets, based on real-world Dakar events. I liked the demo a lot, yet to try the full game.

Steam, X/Twitter
iRacing Arcade
My review

Slightly stretching the definition of “indie” by including this game, but it has all the indie values to it. An enjoyable, cartoonish arcade racer with an excellent, calendar-based career mode, plays like a sequel to Circuit Superstars with a chase camera. On launch, the game severely lacked in content, with only 8 cars (6 of which unlicensed), but as of now it has 13 cars and quite a few varied tracks.

Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, X/Twitter
Super Woden: Rally Edge

A rally-focused spin-off to the GP series with an overhead chase camera and a wide range of obscure, unlicensed rally cars. It’s my personal favourite rally indie of the last few years. If you don’t vibe with the overhead camera, a fully functional chase camera is available as a secret!

Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, X/Twitter
Speed Demons 2

A side-scrolling highway racer, where the player needs to race enemies and/or survive, all while weaving through heavy traffic at insane speeds. So far, I have only played the demo, but I thought it’s solid, reminding me of Mashed a bit with its vehicular combat action.

Steam, X/Twitter
Highway Warriors Remastered

A 1v1 highway racer with cel-shaded graphics and semi-realistic handling. Vibes borrow heavily from the Tokyo Xtreme Racer games, but with regular closed-circuit races with traffic. It can be finished in a single session, but it’s a free remaster of the original game, released as a teaser for Highway Warriors 2.

itch.io*, X/Twitter
Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025)
My review

A now-legendary 2025 release of Tokyo Xtreme Racer was essentially the reason I started covering racing games, so it needs a spot. After 18 years, Genki released a new TXR independently and delivered exactly on what the fans wanted: it’s the same classic TXR formula, but with modern cars and visuals. One of my top games of 2025.

Steam, PlayStation Store, X/Twitter
FLOW

A chill, stylized drifting game where the player performs long drifts in tandem with the AI racer. Has a nice range of cars and surprisingly many visual customization options. It’s a short and simplistic game, but it costs next to nothing.

Steam
JDM: Japanese Drift Master
My review

An ambitious open-world, story-driven racer set in Japan, with a heavy focus on drifting. The game has a mix of licensed and unlicensed vehicles and extensive visual and mechanical customization. I haven’t finished the story yet, but I enjoyed cruising and listening to the game’s soundtrack a lot. It also looks beautiful if your PC can handle it.

GOG.com*, Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, X/Twitter
#DRIVE Rally

An arcade rally racer with pastel graphics and quirky co-drivers. It boasts 25 fantasy cars inspired by well-known rally cars from the 80s and 90s, and sets up its rally stages in multiple open environments that can be roamed freely in Free Ride.

GOG.com*, Steam, PlayStation Store, App Store, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Parking Garage Rally Circuit

A fast-paced arcade time-trialing game with a Sega Saturn-styled presentation, where you race through courses set exclusively in the parking garages. I liked the demo version for its tight control and for scratching that itch to improve your times over and over again, just like in Trackmania.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
SuperSpec Rallycross

A small arcade rallycross game, not unlike a scaled-down Circuit Superstars. It drives well, and I think the art style of the cars is excellent, but it has relatively little content and can be finished in a session or two. It’s good for its price, though.

Steam, X/Twitter
Super Woden GP 2

A solo dev, isometric arcade racer with a huge and diverse roster of unlicensed cars, Gran Turismo 2-like progression, and a unique, semi-realistic handling.

GOG.com*, Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, X/Twitter
Classic Sport Driving

A retro-styled 2.5D racer inspired by OutRun, with a short single-player campaign and multiplayer challenges on procedurally generated courses. A simple game, but it utilizes procedural generation very well by using phrases instead of numerical seeds, so it’s really easy to get others to play against you online on “your” courses. It’s also priced extremely well.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Rush Rally 3

An impressive rally game made by a solo dev on a custom engine. It started as a mobile game before getting ported to consoles and PC, so the handling is noticeably simplistic, but the amount of content is impressive (albeit unlicensed), and the visuals are reminiscent of the late 2000s games. I’m yet to try the full game, but I liked what the demo showed. On top of that, Rush Rally 4 is in active development.

Steam, Nintendo eShop, App Store, Play Store, X/Twitter
Rainy Day Racer

A much older game than the ones I list, but I only discovered it in 2025 after it received an update. A small, time-trial-focused game with a moody, PSP-like atmosphere and on-rails drifting similar to the Ridge Racer games. For its price, I consider it a nearly perfect game; I spent hours in it trying to improve my times and beat my friends.

Steam, Bluesky

Demo & Early Access

Throttle Trace

A mix of a motorsport simulation game with slot cars, where the player only controls the throttle and braking, and cars turn on their own. Despite simplistic controls, the game has pretty elaborate physics, tire wear and fuel, and a very in-depth career mode where the players lead their drivers throughout their entire careers. I didn’t think much of the demo initially, but it surprised me with how complex and big in scope the career promises to be. Currently available in Early Access.

Steam
Heatwarped

An obsessively accurate tribute to the PS2-era Need for Speed games that looks and feels nearly like an alternate universe NFS Underground 2. The demo offers a short sample of what the game is going to be like, with race and drift events, time trials, and car customization. It handles well and is much more polished than you’d expect of a two-man indie project that is a homage to NFS.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
ASUKA x Redline Reverie

A stylized arcade touge racing game with a manga-inspired story and extensive customization. Currently in active development, with a demo available through Patreon, and soon publicly on Steam.

Steam, X/Twitter
Kaido Genkai

An open-world CarPG game with an anime style, set in the 90s Japan. Inspired by Road Trip’s (ChoroQ HG2) open world exploration and racing. Currently in active development backed with Patreon and a successful Kickstarter campaign, with a demo available on Steam. You’ll be able to find me in the game when the full version is out! 😅 I also released a Freeroam Split-Screen mod for the demo, a proof-of-concept mod for up to 4 players.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
OVERCRASH

A “Crash Mode”-inspired game with cartoony graphics. It currently has an early demo on itch.io that I’m yet to try, but I heard good things about it.

Steam, itch.io*
iGNITION 2000: Origins

A 2000s-styled street racing game with (planned) extensive visual customization, paying homage to Midnight Club. Currently available in Early Access, but very early in development.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Driftline Peaks

A touge drifting game heavily borrowing from the aesthetics of the Touge Max PS1 games, designed to be period-accurate and with optional PS1-style filters. A demo with several time trials is available.

Steam, itch.io*, X/Twitter
Pico Drift

A tuner racing game on open tracks, similar to Midnight Club’s checkpoint-based races. It’s set to feature a map editor that can build tracks or entire parts of the city.

Steam, X/Twitter
The Driver Syndicate

A sandbox-style spiritual successor to the classic Driver games with faithful recreations of its gameplay systems and lots of community-made content. The official OST was composed by Allister Brimble, who is the author of Driver and Driver 2’s soundtracks!

itch.io*, X/Twitter
Super Polygon Grand Prix

A Virtua Racing-inspired retro racer with loads of tracks and multiple different car classes, like the formula cars, karts, and stock cars. The game is regularly updated with new, interesting content during its Early Access phase.

Steam, X/Twitter

Upcoming

Blow

A PS1-style racing game inspired by Ridge Racer, recreating its visual and drift-on-rails system. Currently very early in development, with regular development updates.

X/Twitter
Busted Metal

A PowerVR-style vehicular combat racing game with extremely fast-paced racing against 50+ CPU racers at once. Appears to be in semi-active development, but currently has no updates since .

X/Twitter
Grand Pro Circuit

A solo dev formula racing game using a custom engine, inspired by the 80s F1. A modern (but period-appropriate) take on Grand Prix 4. Currently in active development.

Steam, X/Twitter
Lead The Dragon

An open-world street racing game set in the US, with a heavy focus on pursuits and customization. Inspired by the 2010s Need for Speed games and with realistic visuals, but with heavily stylized filters. Currently in active development.

Steam, X/Twitter
LINEAR S

A Sega Saturn-stylized arcade racing game with a novel transmission system. What’s unique about this game is that it does not simply emulate the Saturn visuals but uses a system devised to simulate the way the Sega Saturn rendered the visuals, including all its limitations. No public updates since .

Steam, X/Twitter
Mach-1

A supersonic racing game on fantasy courses with twists and loops, almost like an anti-gravity racer, but on wheels. Currently in active development.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Mayonaka (真夜中) RUSH

A 2000s-inspired street racing game with open areas and simplified, cartoony visuals. The dev footage makes it resemble the first Midnight Club to some extent. Currently in active, but very early, development.

X/Twitter
Nitrania

A fast-paced arcade racer inspired by the 16-bit era of racers, similarly to the Horizon Chase games. No demos or previews have been released, but the game is scheduled to release in Q4 .

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Perfect Lap

A cel-shaded arcade racing game inspired by Auto Modelista. In development, but with relatively infrequent updates.

Steam, X/Twitter
Rogue Stradale

An open world RPG racing game with cel-shaded graphics. It promises extensive vehicle customization and exploration. Since the initial announcement in not much was shared about the game, so we need to wait and see. Parallels to Kaido Genkai seem to be coincidental.

Steam, X/Twitter
RREV: Racing Revolution

An open-world CarPG with life-sim elements. Currently in very early development, with very little development footage published. A short “remix” demo called RREV: Cute was announced, but with no store page or the release date yet.

X/Twitter
Sick Street Racer

A 2000s-inspired street racing game drawing inspiration from NFS Most Wanted with its heavily stylized UI and customization. Currently in early development, but with regular development updates.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
SILKRUN

An arcade racing game focused on drifting around exaggerated tracks. In early development.

Steam, X/Twitter
Super Woden GP 3

The newest entry in the Super Woden series that completely ditches the isometric/overhead camera in favour of the traditional chase camera, but otherwise keeps the trademark Super Woden look. With the way the game is shaping up so far, it might be the closest we’ve ever gotten to an “indie Gran Turismo” so far.

Steam, X/Twitter
unnamed Driver-inspired retro game project

A PS1-styled, Driver-inspired game made by a two-man team. Not much is known about this project yet, but the retro art style and the choice of cars are on point, and the physics shown in the gameplay clips look similar to the original Driver.

X/Twitter, Bluesky

On hold & Cancelled

Formula Circus

A simcade F1-esque game promising an in-depth career mode, customization, and an extensive damage model. Right now, the game is very early in development, so far, they’ve shown several in-game trailers that look ambitious. An early demo is available through Patreon. Development is currently halted, with the game’s future uncertain.

Steam, X/Twitter
REV UP

An open-world cyberpunk racing game with a multiplayer Cops vs Racers system. Indefinitely shelved by the developers.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky

Other car games

Any other games involving vehicles, but not necessarily racing. Trucking, vehicular combat, exploration, etc.

Released

Denshattack!

A stylized, fast-paced game about racing trains whilst performing insane tricks. Style-wise, it resembles Jet Set Radio, with a simplified trick system. The game’s reception is overwhelmingly positive and I personally think it’s one of the best games in 2026.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Easy Delivery Co.

A cozy PS1-styled delivery game where you transport packages in a mountain town inhabited by cats. I really liked the game’s presentation and its twists, as well as the DnB soundtrack. In , it received a free EasyCo EasyRally expansion.

GOG.com*, Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, App Store, Play Store, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom

An arcade collectathon game with lots of platforming starring a wind-up toy taxi.

GOG.com*, Steam, X/Twitter

Demo & Early Access

4x4 in a Furniture Store

A physics-based rock crawling game set in a furniture store. Currently in early development, but I had the chance to playtest the development version, and I like its unique idea (much like most other games from Walaber) and the way the game integrates weighty physics into its gameplay loop. You can hold on to the rollcage and wiggle the car around!

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Truckful

A cozy delivery adventure game with elements of physics-based cargo management and a small town vibe. A demo is available, but the last time I checked, it was in a pretty rough state – the game’s premise is nice, but it’s yet to deliver on that promise.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
FUMES

A car combat game set in a wasteland, with retro aesthetics and fantasy cars inspired by vintage Eastern European automobiles. The gameplay loop in Early Access is made less punishing on purpose, but I think in the current state, the game offers a lot of fun driving around and transporting cargo.

Steam
Honcho

A kei truck simulator set in a procedurally-generated rural Japan. From the development footage, it seems to have a heavy emphasis on car maintenance and upgrading. An early demo (which I haven’t tried) is available for Patreon members.

Steam, X/Twitter
Pocket Wheels

A collectathon/platformer game with toy cars, exploring, racing through different rooms of a house, and working towards diverse objectives. I had a pretty good time with the demo, exploring the two available areas and taking on various challenges available in the world. The game is in development for several years now, but it’s finally set to release in early .

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Tristan Cole's Pro Driver

Crazy Taxi meets Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in this game, where you transport passengers and win races while performing elaborate stunts. It has a demo on itch.io that I haven’t tried yet, as I only learned about it while working on this list.

Steam, itch.io*, X/Twitter

Upcoming

over the hill

An off-road exploration game for up to 4 players and a pastel visual style. It’s a visually stunning game with a much larger scope than their previous games, like art of rally. A public demo was available during one of the Steam Next Fests.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Road Truckers: New Beginning

A truck simulator with elements of RPG and survival. From the public preview, it seems promising; I like that they are aiming to be something more than a driving simulator and they incorporate more in-depth systems.

Steam, X/Twitter
Szrot

A CarPG set in the 80s Yugoslavia, stylized after Racing Lagoon and kept in a PS1-like style. Currently in active development.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky

Other games

Anything else.

Released

Agent 64: Spies Never Die

A “clone” of GoldenEye 007 with an original story and setting, offering a solo and co-op campaign, and a multitude of online PvP modes.

Steam, X/Twitter
The Henchmen

A solo dev take on a game combining the gameplay of top-down GTAs and Hotline Miami. The entire game can be played solo or in split-screen co-op, and that’s exactly how I 100%’d the game myself. I think the game is more than solid: the city is reasonably big, it offers some side activities, and the story, although basic, is split into two parts, not unlike Mafia 2.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Skate Story

An “artsy” skateboarding game about a demon skating his way to eat the Moon. One of the more visually unique games I played recently.

Steam, X/Twitter

Demo & Early Access

Plentiful

An Early Access God-game sandbox where the player is tasked with transforming the terrain to provide the best living conditions for a tribe they take care of. The simulation is grounded in physics, with water flowing freely and resources spreading. Plentiful is a solo dev indie made by Obbe Vermeij, the technical director of the 3D era GTAs and GTA IV!

Steam, X/Twitter
10hit

A first-person shooter game emulating the style of old Flash games; purposefully very “broken” and janky, but with extremely satisfying gunplay.

Steam, X/Twitter
Cleared Hot

A helicopter shooter game inspired by Desert Strike with physics-based elements and a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I haven’t tried the game in Early Access, but I liked the demo from Steam Next Fest 2025.

Steam, X/Twitter
PIGFACE

A gritty immersive sim where you complete assassination contracts on big, sandbox-style maps, and fight against masked gangs; somewhat reminiscent of Manhunt. Currently in Early Access, regularly updated with new content.

Steam
Wanted 3D: Dead or Alive

A boomer shooter using the UZDoom source port, set in the Wild West. I don’t play boomer shooters often, but I thought the demo was enjoyable and accessible.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
Metropolis 1998

A modern, detailed city builder with retro aesthetics. It’s notable for being very “granular”: you build the individual buildings, down to peeking inside the houses and optionally furnishing them, instead of simply zoning different areas.

Steam, X/Twitter
Holstin

An isometric horror game set in a 90s Polish town.

Steam, X/Twitter

Upcoming

ALATURKA

A PS1-styled open world action game set in the 70s Turkey; an indie take on a GTA-style game.

Steam, X/Twitter
Car Park Capital

An isometric, satirical tycoon game with a Rollercoaster Tycoon-like style. In this game, you’re tasked with building parking lots and transforming the city to make the citizens dependent on their cars. Scheduled to enter Early Access soon.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky
I Saw a Flying Saucer

A short C64-styled interactive fiction game. Admittedly, almost nothing is known about the game right now, but I find the art style captivating.

Steam, X/Twitter

A PS2-style stealth action game inspired by Splinter Cell, MGS Peace Walker, and Hitman: Contracts.

Steam, X/Twitter, Bluesky

Changelog