Hot Wheels and developer Velan Studios have announced a new mixed-reality racing game, Hot Wheels Rift Rally, will launch in March on PlayStation 4/5 and iOS.
As you might expect, the title centers on those famous die-cast cars but they aren’t actually the star of the show. In fact the game is built around a much larger, remote control car called the Chameleon RC.
This palm-sized, roughly 1:25 scale car packs a 1080p video camera on its roof. When you play Rift Rally, you’ll actually be controlling this car on your phone or PlayStation, and it translates what it sees into the game.
Through the magic of mixed reality, it transforms the environment into a giant Hot Wheels park — and turns itself into one of the 140 cars available in the game. That includes famous vehicles like the Bone Shaker and Twin Mill, the Deora you see above, and some original vehicles made for Rift Rally. You can customize the in-game vehicles too.
The game also includes four “Rift Gates”, which allow you to set up courses in whatever environment you choose to race in, building your own courses out of your rooms, garages, or even outdoors. A separate “stunt” mode does away with the gates as you try to chain together stunts for points.
If you think that all sounds a lot like Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit but with Hot Wheels… well you’d be right. Velan is also the team behind that title for the Nintendo Switch.
There’ll be two versions of the game available, with the basic game including one Chameleon RC and a charging cable, along with the four Rift Gates. A special Collector’s Edition upgrades the Chameleon to a gold on black livery and includes a limited edition McLaren Senna Hot Wheels in a display case.
As you can imagine neither are particularly inexpensive, at $129.99 for the standard edition and $149.99 for the Collector’s Edition. We’re not sure if the title will support local multiplayer (like MK Live), which would be bad news for parents’ pockets, or online multiplayer.
Either way, Hot Wheels Rift Rally will launch March 14 on iOS, and PlayStation 4 and 5.
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