One would think that the hugely enjoyable, multibillion-dollar Fast & Furious film franchise would spawn any number of similarly fantastic video game adaptations, but devotees of the Toretto family have been starved for quality racing games powered by NOS over the past 24 years. But you may want to put some Coronas on ice right now, because a very promising Fast & Furious game is just around the corner.
On Wednesday, publisher GameMill Entertainment and Universal Products & Experiences announced Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition, a home version of the 2022 game released by Raw Thrills under the title Fast & Furious: Arcade. Whether or not you’ve played the sit-down version of Fast & Furious: Arcade is moot; what’s more important is whether you’ve played Cruis’n Blast, the delightfully over-the-top 2017 arcade racer that was ported to Nintendo Switch in 2021. That’s a Raw Thrills game too, and Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition has a ton of Cruis’n Blast DNA.
Like the latter Fast & Furious films, Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition looks to be full of big jumps, ample destruction that would likely leave hundreds of innocent civilians dead, and over-the-top racing with impossible physics. At least one recognizable car from the F&F films is driveable, Dom’s Dodge Charger, with additional cars like the Corvette Z06, Shelby GT500 KR, Ford GT, Bronco DR, and Jeep Wrangler also available.
Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition is headed to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X on Oct. 24. Expect an arcade-like experience when Fast & Furious: Arcade heads home: Your options appear to be playing against bots in single-player races or two players in split-screen local multiplayer.
The most recent dedicated Fast & Furious games have been Fast & Furious Crossroads, a half-hearted story-based driving game that bridged the events of The Fate of the Furious and F9, and Fast & Furious Spy Racers: Rise of SH1FT3R, based on the animated Netflix series. Outside of some tie-ins with the Forza Horizon franchise, the rest of the F&F games, a mix of mobile and console game cash-ins, aren’t much better.
