Hot Wheels Let's Race: Ultimate Speed

The Fast and the Fasterest! 

While Hot Wheels has seen plenty of videogames over the years, showcasing the tiny metal toy cars in massive open race courses, decorated through numerous themes and franchises, Ultimate Speed instead follows the Netflix cartoon series Hot Wheels Let's Race. In this series, six kids join Hot Wheels Ultimate Racing Camp in an effort to become championship racers. Ultimate Speed follows the adventures of these kids as they take on challenging races, all while having to battle bosses unleashed by Professor Rearview. 

Ultimate Speed does a great job at converting the show into its gameplay and presentation. This is a racing game certainly targeted to fans of the show and young kids in general. While I'm no longer a kid, by at least a few decades, I appreciate what this game does as it's certainly a better option than most kid-associated games in the genre. I'm looking at you, Paw Patrol…

Right off the bat, there is a tutorial that gets you up to speed. It teaches you how to drive, corner, collect turbo icons, perform your boost, and more advanced techniques like drifting and shoulder-checking other racers. It does its job extremely well and ensures you have all the tools you need to win.

This is furthered that Ultimate Speed is extremely approachable and easy to play. Turning feels good, the courses are a lot of fun, and while bumping into walls can sometimes feel like you can't recover in time, as you slam into them four or five times before you get control back of your car, watching your opponents fly by you, you'll eventually get the hang of how drifting can solve that problem altogether.

Courses range from a variety of real Hot Wheels sets; to be fair, this game is essentially a commercial for their toys, with tons of hoops, jumps, and loops that really sell off the feeling of slingshotting a real Hot Wheels toy through the actual orange plastic tracks, seeing them pull off a jump at the end, gaining some good air as you perform spins and other tricks. 

What really shakes up races are the bosses unleashed by Professor Rearview. You'll race on a straightaway as you keep up with the boss to collect items to fling them back at the boss, weakening their health bar as you then collect turbo boost icons to hit the green booster area on the track. You’ll then jump and crash into the boss, defeating them. These bosses range from various creatures, such as bats, sharks, and more.

The menu for your various modes is actually a walkable space as you pick one of the six kids to be your avatar. You can enter into the main championship cups, view your garage, take on other challenges, dig deep into your creative skills in the track builder, to conquer countless time trials, and even a free mode to just enjoy the various courses. All in all, there is a solid variety here for kids, or adults, to enjoy.

I will say that this game is very much focused on kids being its main demographic, so older players may find the game too easy as the AI is fairly incompetent, making it extremely easy to keep your lead, even if you crash into various obstacles. I don't think in my 5+ hours here that I ever lost a race, or even came close, even when I picked slower cars, or chose one of the kids who had lower stats. This remained true despite the various speed settings you can add, ala Mario Kart’s 50cc and 100cc offerings.

As you win, you'll earn Flame Badges, which sort of work like tokens used in a battle pass, except, in this case, you'll unlock items as you achieve certain Flame Badge milestones. From stickers for your car, to entirely new cars, and more pieces for your custom tracks. For what it's worth, there is a lot of variety here for its audience to unlock, making them feel a true sense of progression.

With each car having its own unique ability, from an extra boost, to phantom monster truck wheels, and a holographic shark that gives you a boost, the showcase of cars here is a Hot Wheels’ fan’s dream. From Rubber Ducks, to Rally Cars, to Classic Cars, and more, the variety here is extremely impressive. And, since these are all based on real cars, it furthers the point that these games are very elaborate, and expensive, commercials.

While some of racing may be a bit too much for extremely young kids, there are some helpful accessibility settings built in. You can set auto accelerate, driving aid, and even motion controls as well, at least on the Nintendo Switch. Auto accelerate and the driving aid do a lot to make this game more accessible to the kids that may not have the skills to master every turn.

If I had to complain about something here, it would be the camera. Some turns have you climbing upwards on loops and various bends in the track. The camera has the tendency to look down on the car, making it impossible to see what is ahead of you, especially if that dip then translates into a turn or one of the several obstacles are on the track ahead.

Adding to make this an authentic experience to the show is that every one of the characters have a ton of voice clips from saying particular cars they are driving, the abilities that each car has, to even when they knock into the car of their rival. That said, I wish there were more quips when you use your boost as they only have about 2-3 lines they repeat dozens of times during a race.

Visually, you'll find Ultimate Speed to be more than serviceable in representing the TV show. It's colorful, and the courses certainly have that Hot Wheels orange color and charm. Character models are fine for what they are, and since the demographic for this game are children, there isn't much to really complain about when this isn't a title for gamers that scrutinized every last pixel of a game. It's ok for video games to look like this when it's aimed at a completely different audience than the likes of Ghost of Yotei or Grand Theft Auto 6.

With four player co-op, a competent track builder, and a great feel to its gameplay, Hot Wheels Let's Race Ultimate Speed is a solid racer with a “Kart Racer” feel. Fans of the show, or the genre in general, will find a lot to like here. That said, one question still remains, who gave these kids their driver’s license?

Developer - Bamtang Games.
Publisher - GameMill Entertainment. Released - October 24th, 2025. Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC. Rated - (E) - Comic Mischief, Mild Fantasy Violence. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch.
Review Access - Review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.