Hot Wheels Infinite Rush review: Getting off-track

Milestone had a fresh idea for its latest Hot Wheels game, but the same thrill from its predecessors isn't quite there.

Developer Milestone has been in the racing game business for many years. While the studio still puts together racing sim experiences like the MotoGP, Supercross, and Ride games, it's also become recognized for putting its unique spin on Hot Wheels. The Hot Wheels Unleashed games proved to be solid arcade racers, making the most of Mattel's license. This year, Milestone is back on the Hot Wheels beat with Hot Wheels Infinite Rush and the atmosphere is decidedly more toy-centric. While it still has a lot of the arcade racing fundamentals down, there's something about leaning into the Hot Wheels toy worlds that feel slightly less whimsical than Milestone's previous efforts.

No assembly required

Hot Wheels Infinite Rush takes players across a series of toy-themed islands, each with a different theme that can be found across the franchise's history. Players will gradually unlock more islands as they complete various activities, mainly ones that involve racing each island's Rush Master. This opens up new themes, activities, and vehicles to unlock. The gameplay loop is simple enough for Hot Wheels-owning children and Hot Wheels-collecting adults alike.

All of the islands are presented as open worlds, each with the iconic orange track in different spots and a giant mascot decorating the center of the map. The mascots are often window dressing, though they're pretty active window dressing and can take a swing at you if you drive too close. The island layouts lend themselves to makeshift races and activities, like drifting challenges, almost perfectly. In fact, a Daredevil racer can drive by and prompt players to start up an impromptu challenge with their vehicle at stake.

On the one hand, Milestone delivers a whimsical presentation, not unlike something like Visual Concepts' LEGO 2K Drive three years ago. Infinite Rush wants to feel like a toybox where players are free to go as fast as they want and be as destructive as they want. It's supposed to feel like a toy world, so players are encouraged to act accordingly. Ironically, in going in this direction, Infinite Rush loses an intangible sense of fantasy that came from the Unleashed games before it. There was something cool about toy cars coming to life to race around the real world. Toys racing around toy worlds is okay, but it doesn't feel particularly inventive. It doesn't help that the individual open-world islands feel small, partly a result of vehicles that can drive at breakneck speed. On top of that, despite feeling small, the islands all take a noticeably long time to load back up after each activity.

Fortunately, Milestone still knows what makes a good racing game, so whether taking the track against CPU racers or diving into online multiplayer, there's a sense of competition that prevails. The four different vehicle types (Versatile, Drifter, Speeder, and Titan) all have different specialties, but are still fun to rev up for a quick race. While the islands offer some decent track layouts, it's the big orange track where Milestone can get playful. It shouldn't surprise many that Infinite Rush is at its best when the races embrace the toy-like nature of Hot Wheels and throw in objects like rolling skeeballs and basketball hoops that briefly offer infinite boost.

Play date

Players can also earn upgrades over the course of Infinite Rush, as well as a slew of customization options. In addition, there are more than 150 vehicles to play around with, including some fun novelty cars, so there isn't any shortage of cars to seek out, which is the game's most enticing feature. If you're not racing in a rubber ducky car, are you truly racing?

With that said, a player's Hot Wheels collection isn't meant to stay in its package, but it's meant to be opened and played with across various multiplayer modes. Unfortunately, this is where Infinite Rush truly falls short. Split-screen multiplayer is supported, but only for local racing. There's no option for friends to explore the open-world islands together. That's probably because of the aforementioned size issue, but it still would have been nice to take on some activities and Daredevil races with a friend.

Worse yet, the online multiplayer component is barely playable. Beyond taking excessively long stretches of time to get into a race, the races were all lag-filled messes. If a race did start to run smoothly, all it took was for one player to drop out for the whole thing to come apart, like someone pulling out the bottom piece of an orange track. What's especially sad about this is that Infinite Rush also included a Track Builder mode and, from everything I've seen, it's fairly robust with numerous track pieces and a slew of options. Playing around with custom tracks online should be a marquee feature, but unfortunately, it looks like potential masterpieces will only serve as racing venues for local players sharing with friends in their immediate household.

Rush down

I wanted to like Hot Wheels Infinite Rush more than I did. It isn't just that it conceptually feels like a step down from Unleashed, but the execution feels like there's still more that could have been done. I enjoyed driving through the open-world islands for a while, but their relatively small sizes had me wanting more. There also wasn't very much to do on the islands, which was evidenced by me searching out for 300 bits of island-specific currency within minutes. While I'm disappointed in what Infinite Rush isn't, which is more of the brilliant Unleashed concept, I'm more upset by what Infinite Rush could have been. It could have been a grander exploration of everything that Hot Wheels playsets are, all combined into a near-abominable amalgamation of different themes. Instead, I got a series of separated islands that all take about a minute to load.

Fundamentally, Infinite Rush is still a solid racing game, which is what makes the online multiplayer component so much more disappointing. I want to be able to hit the big orange tracks with the cars that I collected, but am forced to rely on local races instead. For what it's worth, local multiplayer is still a hoot, even if my friends and I can't explore the open world together.

Hot Wheels loves to "take it to the track," as the old slogan goes. Just take an extra moment to consider whether Infinite Rush is the game you want to take to the track.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 review code provided by the publisher. Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 for $49.99 USD. This game is rated E.

Sign up for our monthly roundup of exclusive content, top stories, and updates from Shacknews - once a month, no spam.

Shacknews staff does not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their content. Shacknews strictly prohibits the use of its content for AI training or to generate text, including text in the style or format used for this publication. Shacknews reserves all rights to this work.

Review for
Hot Wheels Infinite Rush
6
Pros

• Fun toy set concept
• Racing fundamentals are solid
• Lots of cars to collect and customize
• Brilliant Track Editor mode

Cons

• Concept feels underbaked compared to past Hot Wheels games
• Islands feel small
• Can't explore open world locally with friends
• Online multiplayer is nearly unplayable
• Long load times