This also touches on the challenge of the game. You need a League Entry Token to compete on a tour. Crash too many times or fail to place in the top 3 in a particular event, the Token is revoked and your journey is over, forcing you to begin anew to race qualifiers to earn a Token once again. Some items are retained, like Galactic Credits, but it’s a punch in the gut when you get knocked out. Especially in my case when I was so close to the end of the tour, only to get a little cocky (should’ve listened to Han) and was eliminated, forced to start over. This doesn’t affect the overall narrative as far as I could tell – you’re still out to get Kestar Bool, eventually. This is merely a setback.
Among the real stars of the show are the tracks themselves, which are all massive and intricately detailed, dotted with Star Wars bits that lend them both a feeling of familiar yet alien, like the battle scared landscape of Jakku, the tropical forests of Lantaana, or the frozen Ando Prime which make up some of the six distinct worlds you can race across. Couple that with a variety of tracks to race on each planet and you’ll quickly see there’s an incredible depth here to master should you want to come out on top against some of the galaxies’ finest racers. Beyond the track, I also appreciated the down time between races in the paddocks, areas where you could freely walk around and talk to other racers, upgrade your craft, and pick up unique parts from vendors, using Galactic Credits earned from your races.
On top of this, we also tried out the arcade mode that has curated events featuring speeders and locations across the league, putting you in the seat of some racers you might recognize, like the legendary Sebulba. For our one race in this mode, we sped across the famous Tatooine track featured in “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.” As far as we could tell, this felt like a 1:1 recreation with incredible audio and visual fidelity. That deep humming tick-tick-tick-tick sound of Sebubla’s split-x engines brought me back to watching him speed across the screen in the movie theater. Did I do well? Heck no. But I’m looking forward to my next go around the track.