Open-world racing games have been transporting us to various corners of the world for many years. Whether its the gorgeous islands of Hawaii, the diverse lands of Mexico, or the neon-lit streets of Japan, they’ve all been used as sprawling makeshift race tracks. However, racing games rarely stray too far from the present day – largely so that iconic cars of the past and glistening new models that are hot in moment can be faithfully recreated. Punk Runner wants to change that, as it takes the formula of series like Need For Speed, blasts you into the future, and puts you behind the wheel of levitating cars in a cyberpunk city.
If speeding around the streets of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 stirred up some excitement, Punk Runner is going to take things even further. In a novel twist on the open-world racing game formula, you won’t be leaving trails of tire smoke and tinkering with suspension. Wheels are so old fashioned – it’s time for some thrusters. In Punk Runner, you race and explore in flying cars, but developer Max Parata has designed them to feel familiar to racing game fans. “Unlike other games, where flying cars are unrealistic and operate like helicopters, drones or spaceships, Punk Runner presents flying cars that drive like real cars, only with thrusters instead of wheels,” they say.
As for where you’ll be racing, it’s a cyberpunk, neon-soaked city that, despite appearances, will not feel too alien for those that have played games from the top dogs of the open-world racing genre. There are chop shops scattered around where you can customize your car (more on that in a moment) and secrets to uncover if you head to locations off the beaten track. While you can park up at race events to begin different activities, you can also challenge anyone else exploring the city to a race at any time. If they accept, you will “seamlessly” enter into a race where the winner is the first to open up a one kilometre lead over their opponent.
Directly inspired by Need For Speed Underground 2, Punk Runner leans heavily into Japanese car culture when it comes to the style of its futuristic vehicles and customization. Expect vibrant paint jobs, big spoilers, and chunky body kits.
This project has been worked on by solo developer Parata for a fair few years now, but they’re finally ready to get people playing. It’s still in a “pre-alpha” state, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try it out and offer up some feedback.
You can download a free early access version of Punk Runner right now. At the moment, this is essentially a demo, letting you get a flavor of the full game by giving you one car, one race track, and two explorable areas of its cyberpunk city. A lot of the promised features are absent at the moment, but more content, gameplay mechanics, and improvements are on the horizon. You can learn more about Punk Runner and download its early build from itch.io here.
Once you’ve given it a spin, check out our list of the best open-world games for more beautiful places to explore, or keep things gritty and neon-lit with one of our favorite cyberpunk games.
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