Velan Studios has announced Hot Wheels Rift Rally, a mixed-reality racer taking the same technology used to power Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit and applying it to Hot Wheels vehicles and bringing it to PlayStation and Apple platforms.
The game will come with a special “Chameleon RC” remote control vehicle and four mixed-reality gates for players to set up their own physical circuits in their homes, much like the Mario Kart equivalent. The in-game car will be customisable to take the form of 140+ different vehicles, and the game will be playable in co-op or up to four-player racing with four physical RC cars on the same circuit. It’ll also feature a special Stunt Mode and challenges to master.
All up, Hot Wheels Rift Rally sounds like a pretty fully-featured take on the mixed reality racing concept, although it won’t be cheap at $129 USD for the base pack with one standard Chameleon RC car or a $149 USD Collector’s Edition with the following:
- Collectors Edition Chameleon RC car
- Limited edition die-cast McLaren Hot Wheels® car
- Bonus unlockable car: McLaren Senna
Hot Wheels Rift Rally is set to launch in the US on March 14th for PS5, PS4 and iOS. At the time of writing, pre-orders/availability outside of the US and Canada have not been confirmed.
If the name Velan Studios rings a bell, it’s because the studio also recently announced it would be shutting down its online, free-to-play volleyball game, Knockout City, in June.
In a lengthy post making the announcement, Velan says the decision came about due to a particularly challenging couple of years running the game as a brand new, self-published (after taking over from EA Originals), free-to-play IP that it believes can’t be improved to be more sustainable without major systemic changes. Instead, the studio wants to take it as a kind of learning experience, collating all of its learnings from the game and putting them to practice in new projects (or a very narrow chance at the IP returning in future).
