Somehow, I completely missed that footage from the cancelled Nintendo Switch-exclusive Ridge Racer game had leaked online. I stumbled across it today, and while I am happy to finally see what could have been, it also makes me disappointed that this project never was never completed, and made its way to us.
Rumors surrounding the game first surfaced in 2018 after a Bandai Namco Studios Singapore employee listed Ridge Racer 8 on their LinkedIn profile. The game was described as a high-speed drifting title being developed exclusively for the Nintendo Switch, but Bandai Namco never officially announced it or explained what happened.
Years later, footage from an early playable build appeared online after reportedly being recovered from an old Nintendo Switch development kit. It is clearly an unfinished prototype, complete with rough environments and placeholder elements, but it proves that a new Ridge Racer game for the Switch was real.
The footage shows the menus, car selection, customization options, and some actual racing. Unfortunately, whoever is playing does not appear to understand how drifting works in Ridge Racer and watching them repeatedly crash into walls makes the game look worse than it probably was. The footage is also pretty rough, and it does appear to have lost what made Ridge Racer... well, Ridge Racer. To me it felt like another generic racing title, especially with those robotic sounding voice overs.
Still, it is worth watching if you, like me, are a fan of the series and spent years hoping it would eventually make a comeback.
That is what makes this so frustrating. Bandai Namco seemingly left the once-great racing series behind following Ridge Racer Unbounded and the failed free-to-play experiment Ridge Racer Driftopia. Damn, the later was so bad. It never should have existed. While Unbounded focused heavily on destruction-based racing and was a massive departure from what many fans wanted from the series.
To Bandai Namco’s credit, Ridge Racer has not been completely forgotten. Hamster has released both Arcade Archives 2 Ridge Racer and Arcade Archives 2 Rave Racer, giving fans a chance to revisit those arcade classics on modern hardware. I am happy to see those games preserved, and I have been begging Hamster and Bandai Namco to get to work on a Rage Racer port as well. However, rereleasing older games is still not the same as giving the series a future.
There may still be some hope. Bandai Namco has recently brought back Ace Combat with Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, and I had the chance to play it. Man, it was a fun return to the series, and it showed that Bandai Namco can still revive one of its older franchises when it puts in the work. Perhaps once the company is not so busy, it can turn its attention toward Ridge Racer. The audience is still here, the demand never completely disappeared, and the series deserves another chance. Just like another racing series…. F-Zero anyone?
Maybe this cancelled game would not have been the grand return the series deserved, but seeing it in action still hurts, as does watching whoever is play this.
