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Gear up and get ready to rev those emotional engines, enthusiasts! The legendary and distinctly Japanese racing game Tokyo Xtreme Racer is set to receive its first sequel since there were just three Fast and Furious films. This announcement has me more excited than I’ve been about any media release since the original Star Wars had a brief re-release in theaters around 1998.
For those unfamiliar with the game, here’s a quick overview. Game publisher Genki (which I thought had ceased operations) recently shared a teaser trailer on YouTube and confirmed on Steam that a new Tokyo Xtreme Racer is on the way, scheduled for release in “2025.” An official webpage is also available.
Although the teaser doesn’t reveal much, it strongly indicates a return to the beloved Tokyo highway tracks from two decades ago, now featuring modern graphics.
According to the game’s official description:
“Tokyo Xtreme Racer” immerses players in a futuristic Tokyo, where customized cars race on the city’s highways in pursuit of speed and dominance.
Experience real cars on intricately designed courses, compete against formidable opponents, weave through traffic, and engage in intense battles that will put your skills to the test. This series offers a unique appeal.
A new title, “Tokyo Xtreme Racer,” is currently in development. Stay tuned for further updates!
Are you excited? Because I certainly am! I might be somewhat of an outlier in my enthusiasm—I even constructed a CRT/PS2-based simulated racing rig in my basement just to keep playing the classic TXR titles (as well as Outrun, Gran Turismo, NFS, and others).
What Is Tokyo Xtreme Racer?
For those unfamiliar with TXR (known as Shutoko Battle in Japan), the summary above doesn’t fully capture its essence, so let me elaborate. The premise revolves around you, an old-school street racer in the style of Midnight Club. You navigate through semi-realistic portrayals of Tokyo’s highways, mingling with other drivers as you roam freely.
To initiate a racing challenge, simply flash your lights at potential opponents; the race begins wherever you find yourself, with no defined finish line. Victory is determined by maintaining your lead over your opponent for a set duration. Each racer starts with a health bar reminiscent of a fighting game; the bar decreases if you’re trailing. The greater the gap between racers, the faster the leading car’s opponent’s health depletes.
The gameplay also incorporates standard racing elements: Winning races rewards you with currency, which you can spend to enhance your vehicle or its components, while opponents grow increasingly challenging as you accumulate victories.
While these mechanics are engaging, what truly endears TXR to its fans is its distinctive charm and eccentricity. Competitors are given quirky names, crew affiliations, and amusing avatars. The game features much amusingly poorly translated Japanese—your anonymous character receives an auto-generated callsign influenced by your driving style, resulting in bizarre names like “happy berserker,” “hell zeus,” or “power chain devil,” akin to that of racehorses. Additional lore can be found on Gamefaqs and, of course, Reddit.
The soundtracks of TXR are also fantastic, characterized by catchy Eurobeat tracks that, while repetitive, feature a delightful mix of real and fictional vehicle brands. The earlier titles of the series don’t include licensed cars, featuring instead cleverly disguised replicas with names derived from their chassis codes (for instance, the third-gen RX-7 is called something like “FD7X”). Notably, “Catz,” a headlight supplier from that era, is one of the few actual brands present in the PS2 version of Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Zero, the first TXR game on that platform.
I’ve always appreciated the detail of having working horns, turn signals, and hazard lights on the cars, even if these features didn’t affect gameplay. It also makes for enjoyable gameplay when multitasking.
Yet, the game’s quirkiest traits extend deeper. While most races can be triggered by simply approaching a rival and signaling them with your high beams, certain competitors won’t race you unless you achieve arbitrary thresholds (like driving a specific distance or modifying your car in a particular way). Frustratingly, these benchmarks are never revealed, requiring players to discover them through experimentation (nearly impossible) or sheer luck. Fortunately, guides exist now to assist with this. Back in the early 2000s, my friends and I dedicated countless hours trying to conquer these games.
Various sequels and versions of Tokyo Xtreme Racer were produced across different gaming platforms. I owned TXR:0 and TXR:3 on PS2, alongside TXR: Drift, which I recently acquired, emphasizing drifting rather than highway racing. Regrettably, I can’t make much headway due to a lack of time and focus for gaming these days, but brief play sessions have been enjoyable.
Interested in checking out some gameplay but lack an old console? Here’s a helpful video demonstrating the game:
If you’d like to delve deeper, there’s a video that explores various versions of the game and related titles throughout the years:
If you’ve made it this far in the article about Tokyo Xtreme Racer in 2024, I presume you’re equally excited about the upcoming title in 2025. Honestly, I don’t even desire any new features; I would simply love to relive the classic game with enhanced graphics. Well, maybe I’d appreciate a few more licensed vehicles and customization options.
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