Hot Wheels Infinite Rush Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
Growing up, there was nothing quite like getting a Hot Wheels car as a little gift from someone, or saving up your hard-earned pocket money to add another car to the collection. These days, my hard-earned money goes towards much less exciting things like paying bills, so I was pleasantly surprised when publisher Plaion sent me a copy of Hot Wheels Infinite Rush to check out. Can this Forza Horizon-style take on the classic toys help me relive my childhood, or does it stall at the starting line? What’s It Like? Select your racer, fasten your seatbelt, and let’s open up the world as we review Hot Wheels Infinite Rush for Nintendo Switch 2.
Hot Wheels Infinite Rush detours from the established Unleashed series of games by opening up the world in a Forza Horizon-style layout. The world of Infinite Rush is comprised of four islands in an archipelago that offer different themes and events. You have the starting zone of Wheelswood, a Hollywood-style area with an urban setting and a giant gorilla with an attitude. Then there’s Tentacle Bay, a coastal setting with a giant octopus as the main set piece. Gearville is a desert area with a giant scorpion towering over it, and finally, there’s Drifty Temples, an oriental-themed area with a giant dragon as the centrepiece. Each area feels varied and exciting, and the open world built around these areas is full of the iconic orange tracks, as well as standard race courses and urban layouts. This open-world approach starts off feeling rather underwhelming, offering only a handful of events to partake in while working your way towards unlocking the Rush stages, which unlock a boss fight, upgrades and new islands. Before you unlock more events, a lot of the open world feels empty, having you race from one objective to the next without much to do in between. There’s some variety in these events, from standard racing and time attacks to missions where you have to hit wheels on the track to score points, stunt challenges and even destruction missions, which are a nice diversion.
The main race events are generally the most exciting, powersliding around the courses and boosting your way to victory. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel (Pun intended) but offers that same level of action and excitement the Unleashed series did, with a bit more freedom. There are four main types of vehicles: Speeders, for fast and furious racing; Drifters, to slide around tracks; Titans, which have a heavy weight class and unique boost mechanics; and Versatiles, which offer a more balanced approach. For fans of Hot Wheels, all the iconic designs are here, with some hidden as bosses and others purchasable from the dealership. There are actually over 150 Hot Wheels designs here to collect, giving completionists plenty to strive and drive for.
This all comes together to create the world of Hot Wheels as you most likely imagined it as a kid, and it managed to keep me entertained for the majority of my time with it. Racing is really fun and high-octane, and there’s a real sense of satisfaction when doing a loop or nailing the perfect drift around a corner while boosting to the finish line. Sure, there were some odd design choices, like an aggressive left and right dodge which I used once throughout my playthrough, and drip-feeding events which, as mentioned, made the world feel empty. For racers who revel in the more wild and outlandish courses, there’s an easy-to-use track editor which places you above a locale of your choice and lets you build some crazy courses within a specified item limit. I really found this course creator to be rather intuitive, allowing you to snap track options together and add some of the iconic playsets into the mix. I created some crazy loop-de-loops and then a mishmash of playsets at the end, making my course an almost endurance-style race of wits, and I can see myself getting lost in creating some pretty wild designs. If you’re not one for meticulously planning out turns and curves, you can do quick races on Community Island and test out the best creations the community has to offer. It’s all great fun and suits the spirit of the days when you and your friends would build and test out tracks. However, jumping between races and islands does highlight the biggest issue with Infinite Rush…
And that is because for every minute I was immersed in this new open world, I was also forced to spend a minute watching loading screens, as the Switch 2 version of Hot Wheels Infinite Rush really struggles with loading times. At one stage, I went into an event, waited roughly a minute for it to load, spent a minute and a half racing, then had to watch another loading screen to get back into the open world. I darted across to the next objective, which was a minute away, and then, you guessed it… waited another minute to load in. It became so tiresome waiting for loading screens that eventually, I just wanted to spend 15 minutes racing around the open world by myself to avoid watching that loading icon for another second more. You spend an almost equal amount of time in loading screens as you do racing… This loading issue is such a shame because when I’m immersed in the world, I’m REALLY immersed in the world, only to be taken right back out of it by another tedious loading screen. Outside of this, I didn’t experience any other performance issues, and the frame rate kept locked to that 30 FPS target.
Which is more than serviceable, because I found the graphics of the game to be quite good. There’s clearly some upscaling at play here, doing a lot of the heavy lifting, with image ghosting and a bit of that DLSS blur that we’ve become familiar with on the platform, but outside of this, the cars, tracks, and worlds just feel really authentic. What I really loved is that all the details on the Hot Wheels are here, from the injection moulding lines on plastic details to the bevelled edges of the car details etched in the steel. Even the production stamp on the bottom of the cars is visible, showing the model, year, and even the “Made in Malaysia” stamp. It’s very well done and clearly a labour of love to catch that sort of attention to detail, which should really be applauded. Even the playsets, which can tower over your vehicles, are authentic, and for a moment there, transported me back to my room as a kid messing about with my Hot Wheels collection.
For my speed demons looking into accessibility, Hot Wheels Infinite Rush has a range of driving assists, remappable controls, colour blindness filters, UI scalability, tinnitus reduction filtering, and even an offline game speed option. It’s great to see Milestone continue to add accessibility and customisation features into their games. When everyone gets to play, gaming becomes a better place. At just under $70 AUD, Hot Wheels Infinite Rush offers a lot of content for completionists, and a great time racing for even casual fans. There are some expensive editions that add extra vehicles, and you can also purchase a vehicle pass if you get hooked, but the standard edition has plenty to keep you occupied.
Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is a really great racing game, hampered by loading times on the Switch 2. There’s an authentic, fast, and fun Hot Wheels experience here that has a lot of attention to detail. While the open worlds don’t initially add a lot to the experience, there’s plenty here to collect and race for completionists and Hot Wheels fans alike. If you’ve been looking for a racer with high-octane thrills, Hot Wheels Infinite Rush might be right up your alley, provided those loading times don’t send you around the loop-de-loop.
So, What’s it Like? Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is like Hot Wheels Unleashed, crossed with Forza Horizon.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.
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