I'm a complete outsider to Wipeout and AG racing games, compared to most people who will buy this game. When I purchased it, I literally thought nothing beyond it was a neat looking retro racing game, and I didn't expect too much from it. I was a bit intimidated by the difficulty, and it took me a few days to work up the courage to play it...

...and then I did.

I'm not joking when I say this is one of the best racing games I've ever played, and that's not recency bias talking. The ship[ handling feels absolutely incredible, the soundtrack is excellent, and the visual direction is amazing, not only emulating the retro aesthetic so faithfully it could pass off fairly convincingly as a PS2 or PS1-era video game, but looking absolutely gorgeous while it does it.

Vonsnake as well as various collaborators have poured an enormous amount of love and effort into this game over the years, and every last inch of it shows. This game is well above and beyond merely a successor to Wipeout - it's comfortably surpassed it, and created its own unique identity.

However, do be aware that game's difficulty is fairly high and assists are available but minimal - however, no content is gated behind this except for that which would be most appealing to people seeking even more difficulty. An "unlock all" option in the options menu, however, will give you full access to virtually all of the game's content at the cost of removing access to achievements, campaign progression, and records until you reboot the game.

With that in mind, though - this game is so good that even the steep learning curve is an incredibly fun and rewarding experience, and if you're willing to put in the effort, you'll be able to win at higher difficulties much faster than you might expect.

Once the initial nostalgia wears off you start to realize (especially in later campaign levels) how clunky some of the mechanics are especially for such strict requirements for achieving higher ranks. This effectively locks you out of a good portion of the game if you can't "get good" at handling your controls.

I'd also like to mention that according to multiple people in the community and even the former designer for BallisticNG, the devs foster a community of bigotry and the devs themselves encourage homophobic and transphobic rhetoric.

https://x.com/mariejuku/status/1166631084139917317

https://web.archive.org/web/20200710221755/https://twitter.com/taciturasa/status/1281635681320787969

Idk just buy Redout, grab an emulator for Wipeout, or whatever 🏴‍☠️

I have played this game all of 30 mins and I want to play another 30 days. It is so awesome.