''Disney Speedstorm'' is a free-to-play

kart racing game A kart racing game, also known as cart racing game or go-kart racing game, is a subgenre of Racing game, racing games. Kart racing games have simplified driving mechanics while including unusual racetrack designs, obstacles, and Vehicular combat ...

developed by Gameloft Barcelona and published by

Gameloft Gameloft SE is a French video game company based in Paris, founded in December 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot. The company operates 18 development studios worldwide, and publishes games for mobile devices, video game consoles, and ...

. It features various

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

and

Pixar Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...

characters racing vehicles on tracks themed after the worlds of their films and franchises. The game was released in a pay-for

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release Software release life cycle, developm ...

on 18 April 2023, for

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

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, and

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, with a

soft launch A soft launch, also known as a soft opening, is a preview release of a product or service to a limited audience prior to the general public. Soft-launching a product is sometimes used to gather data or customer feedback, prior to making it wi ...

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

on 1 August 2023. The console and computer versions left early access on 28 September 2023, while the mobile version officially launched on 11 July 2024.

Gameplay

''Disney Speedstorm'' is a free-to-play

with a roster composed of characters from various Disney properties, such as the '' Mickey and Friends'', ''

Pirates of the Caribbean ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' is a Disney media franchise encompassing numerous theme park rides, a series of films, and spin-off novels, as well as a number of related video games and other media publications. The franchise originated with Wa ...

'', ''

Monsters, Inc. ''Monsters, Inc.'' (also known as ''Monsters, Incorporated'') is a 2001 American animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Cobu ...

'', ''

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the Firsts in animation, firs ...

'' and ''

Beauty and the Beast "Beauty and the Beast" is a fairy tale written by the French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in (''The Young American and Marine Tales''). Villeneuve's lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and publish ...

'' franchises, among others, reimagined as race car drivers (referred to in-game as "Racers") in an in-universe

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

also called ''Disney Speedstorm''. The gameplay is similar to ''

Mario Kart is a series of kart racing games based on the ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise developed and published by Nintendo. Players compete in go-kart races while using various power-up item (game terminology), items. It features Characters in ...

''. Racers can drift to improve their cornering and charge their nitro boost, which can only be used when the boost meter full. Racers also get a small drift boost from long drifts (indicated by their tires glowing blue), which also gives them an extra boost charge. Racers can sideswipe other Racers to knock them aside, jump to reach higher grounds or dodge obstacles, perform aerial stunts off designated jumps for a small speed boost upon landing, and grind on designated blue rails to also gain nitro boost. Racers can also pick up various

power-ups In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that can be used at any time chose ...

, called "skills", by driving through sprites with the image of Arbee, the game's emotive AI mascot, on them. These skills include offensive weapons that stun Racers, shields that protect Racers from stuns, cloaks that make Racers intangible and invisible, nitro boost charges, rushes that provide sudden bursts of speed, and hacks that flip a Racer's screen, potentially confusing them. Skills can also be "charged" to cause different effects; for example, a charged shield allows a Racer to stun another Racer who drives into them, at the cost of not being protected from being stunned unless a normal shield, a cloak, or an invulnerability effect is already in effect. Offensive skills and hacks can also be used backwards behind Racers. The availability of the various skills depends on the Racer (except in "Single Skill" races, mentioned below); for example, some Racers can receive and use shields while others can receive and use cloaks. Finally, each Racer has a unique skill that provide benefits to only that Racer, with each unique skill having normal and charged variants. Each Racer has a range of stats that affect their performance, including top speed, acceleration, handling, boost, and combat. The stats can be upgraded by levelling up Racers, which during the game's first six seasons of content updates, required spending various "upgrade parts" collected from single-player event races and

PvP Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents and is usually off ...

multiplayer, which were later replaced with a single currency called "upgrade coins" from the seventh season onwards. However, Racer upgrade levels are capped to certain levels depending on their star levels, which require collecting "Racer shards". Further stat boosts and other enhancements are provided by attaching " Crew Members" to a Racer, which feature images of various minor Disney characters on them. The Crew Members can only be applied to Racers of the same affiliated collections (franchises) as them, such as the Orange Bird serving as a Crew Member for Figment; with "Epic" rarity Crew Members being applicable to only one Racer.

Game modes

The game includes various different single-player and multiplayer modes. Single-player modes include "Starter Circuit", a series of events that effectively serves as the game's "tutorial", limited events, which offer rewards for completing specific objectives or for getting a fast time on a leaderboard compared with other players online, "Season Tour", a limited-time campaign mode that changes each new content season, and "Tournaments", in which players race as a single Racer from either the ''Mickey and Friends'' franchise or a franchise that was featured in a previous season for a series of four races to earn points. Multiplayer includes ranked multiplayer, where players race to earn points to unlock tiers of rewards for each of their unlocked Racers (as well as for the player overall as of the game's eighth season), regulated multiplayer, a separate ranked multiplayer (with its own set of rewards that change weekly) that puts all Racers at the same performance levels, "Private Track", which allows players to set up their own custom races online with friends or invited players, and "Local Freeplay", the game's only offline mode, which features custom races for one to four players (one or two players on older consoles) in split-screen multiplayer. Ranked multiplayer can either be played either solo (up to eight Racers racing against one another) or in a team in a three-on-three race. The races themselves are available in different types that feature different gimmicks: "Classic" is a traditional race; "Single Skill" forces all Racers to use the same offensive skill; "Floating Objects" have speed boosts and skill items floating above the ground, thus forcing Racers to jump to reach them; "Fog Challenge" covers the track in a dense

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus and is heavily influenc ...

—limiting visibility—and removes the minimap from the player's heads-up display; and "Last One Standing" is an elimination race where after a short (and declining) amount of time passes, the last place Racer either loses a "shield drone" and is teleported ahead on the track to try to avoid falling back to last or is eliminated if they have no more drones remaining. In the season two update in June 2023, the game added two new race types called "Color Match" and "Follow the Leader"; the former type forces players to pick up power-up items corresponding to one of two colors—green and purple—each of them is assigned to as indicated by the HUD and an underglow effect beneath their vehicle, switching between colors during the race, while the latter adds a long slipstream trail behind the race leader that provides a speed boost to the racers following the trail.

Characters and environments

As of May 2025, the game has a total of 92 "Racers" (playable characters) from 27 Disney media franchises. Many franchises also have an affiliated track environment, each featuring multiple track layouts, with ''Mickey Mouse & Friends'' having two (one based on modern ''Mickey Mouse'' media and one based on black-and-white shorts such as ''

Steamboat Willie ''Steamboat Willie'' is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black-and-white by Walt Disney Animation Studios and was released by Pat Powers (producer), Pat Powers, under the name of Cele ...

''), while ''Disney Speedstorm'' itself has two original environments, "Arbee's Arena" and "Arbee's Short Circuit". Additionally, one environment, the ''

''-inspired "A Pirate's Life", received an expansion via an update for the game's ninth season, adding new areas of the map and new track layouts. The game also features a wide voice cast, most of whom reprise their respective characters from their original works. Beginning with Season 7: ''Sugar Rush'', however, only selected new Racers will receive voice lines, with some unvoiced racers (specifically Calhoun, Fear, Sally, Mr. Incredible and Baymax) getting voice lines later on. However, Season 11 have all new Racers getting voice lines with the aforementioned Mr. Incredible getting them during the third part.

Soundtrack

The music is done by a team of four musicians (Vincent Labelle, Nicholas Dubé, Francis Collard and Martin Courcy)

remixing A remix, also sometimes called reorchestration or rework, is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, poem, or photograph ca ...

Disney and Pixar tunes.

Development and release

''Disney Speedstorm'' is developed by Gameloft Barcelona, the developers of the ''

Asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

'' games '' 8: Airborne'' and '' Legends Unite'', and was designed to be a high-speed racing game based on Disney's franchises and characters. It was made using the same game engine ''Asphalt 9: Legends'' used, Gameloft's in-house Jet Engine. Alexandru "Sasha" Adam, VP and studio manager, Gameloft Barcelona explained, "The gameplay mechanics, the racer abilities and the location design were all tailored to serve our vision of a fast and gripping competitive experience." Announced in March 2023, the game was released in

for

and

on 18 April 2023. A trailer for the game was released on 9 September 2022 at the D23 Expo. On 30 June 2023, Gameloft announced that the game would leave early access, entering its intended free-to-play period, on 28 September 2023, following the conclusion of the game's third season. On 1 August 2023, Gameloft

ed the game on

and

alongside the game's third season update. The soft launch began in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, with plans to expand the soft launch to the

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Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

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Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

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Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, and

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

over time. After an announcement on 6 June 2024, the mobile version was fully released on 11 July 2024.

Downloadable content

On 27 March 2023, Gameloft released a trailer announcing three "Founder's Packs" that would be available during the game's early access period. The Founder's Packs, which were required for early access, all contained Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck as unlocked racers (with the Deluxe Founder's Pack adding Mulan and the Ultimate Founder's Pack adding her, Hercules, and Jack Sparrow), plus a choice to immediately unlock Baloo, Belle, Beast, Elizabeth Swann, Li Shang, or Mowgli; Tokens (the game's premium currency; 4,000 Tokens for Standard, 7,000 for Deluxe, and 12,000 for Ultimate), two (or three for Ultimate) Golden Pass Credits (unlocking the Golden Pass, the game's

battle pass In the video game industry, a battle pass or rewards track is a type of monetization approach that provides additional content for a game usually through a tiered system, rewarding the player with in-game items for playing the game and complet ...

system), exclusive racing suits and kart liveries for each of the immediately unlocked racers (depending on the player's chosen tier), exclusive Donald Duck kart wheels and wing (Ultimate only), and an exclusive player avatar and profile motto. As a free-to-play title, all content in the game (apart from the Founder's Pack exclusives) is added via seasonal content updates, which are added approximately every two months. Each season adds four or five new racers from a newly added franchise of focus for that season, a new map based on that franchise, starting with the “Big Hero 6” themed 13th season, however, each season now adds three new racers (in this case, Hiro Hamada, Baymax and Honey Lemon), and new "bonus" racers mostly not affiliated with the season's focused-on franchise that are made available mid-season (with the exception of Season 8, ''Journey of Emotions'', which added Anxiety and Ennui from ''

Inside Out 2 ''Inside Out 2'' is a 2024 American animated coming-of-age film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The sequel to '' Inside Out'' (2015), it was directed by Kelsey Mann and was produced by Mark Nielsen, from a screen ...

''), as well as new crew members and customization options for the racers.

Reception

''Disney Speedstorm'' received "mixed or average reviews", according to review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. 60% of critics recommended the game on review aggregator

OpenCritic OpenCritic is a review aggregation website for video games. OpenCritic lists reviews from critics across multiple video game publications for the games listed on the site. The website then generates a numeric score by averaging all of the numeri ...

. John Hansen of ''

Push Square Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and oth ...

'' said while they had reservations with the free-to-play monetization, they thought the game had a lot of potential and summarised by saying "if you're a Disney fan, it's a good way to mash together some of your favorite old movies and battle it out on the racetrack." Chris Scullion for ''

Nintendo Life Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and ot ...

'' praised the gameplay but criticized the performance issues of the Switch version and felt that the game's monetization would deter some players. Luke Reilly of ''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

'' found the game had too few tracks and was overly repetitive for its then-asking price, while criticizing its excessive monetization scheme.

Monetization changes

On 9 April 2024, Gameloft announced in a community news update changes to the game's Golden Passes for the game's then-upcoming seventh season. The company announced that, among other changes, each season would be split into two parts lasting approximately one month each, with each part having its own Golden Pass, and Tokens—which can be either purchased as microtransactions or earned through ranked multiplayer—can no longer be used to purchase Golden Passes, effectively making Golden Passes only available via a direct purchase. The monetization changes was met with strong backlash from players. Players criticized the changes as being "predatory" and labeled Gameloft as "thieves". Paul McNally of

ReadWrite ReadWrite (originally ReadWriteWeb or RWW) is a Web technology blog launched in 2003, covering Web 2.0 and Web technology in general, and providing industry news, reviews, and analysis. Founded by Richard MacManus, Technorati ranked ReadWrite ...

pointed out that the announcement comes "at a time when the

Helldivers 2 ''Helldivers 2'' is a 2024 cooperative third-person shooter game developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5 and Windows. The game is the direct sequel to '' Helldivers'' (2015). Set ...

Warbond battle pass is being praised for being so generous with its in-game currency allowing players easy access to its premium tiers for free". Players

review bomb A review bomb is a malicious Internet phenomenon in which a large number of people or Sock puppet account, a few people with multiple accounts post negative user reviews online in an attempt to harm the sales or popularity of a product, a service, ...

ed the game on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

after the announcement, with ''

Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017 and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. Histor ...

''s Michael Beckwith pointing out that the game's Steam version had been losing active players since November 2023 according to Steam Charts. Some players requested refunds for their past purchases, others threatened to boycott the game by either refusing to make any further purchases or stop playing ''Speedstorm'' altogether, and at least one Redditor on the ''Speedstorm'' subreddit has proposed filing a

class action A class action is a form of lawsuit. Class Action may also refer to: * ''Class Action'' (film), 1991, starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio * Class Action (band), a garage house band * "Class Action" (''Teenage Robot''), a 2002 e ...

lawsuit. On 17 April 2024, in response to the backlash, Gameloft announced that players could continue to purchase Golden Pass Credits with Tokens until 16 May 2024, allowing players to buy future Golden Passes using Credits bought with Tokens up to that date, but otherwise would continue with plans to restrict Golden Pass purchases to either direct payments or Golden Pass Credits afterward. On 1 August 2024, Gameloft released a limited time event to unlock Ennui from ''

''. However, only five shards could be obtained from the event (ten is required to unlock her), requiring players to purchase and use Tokens to purchase her designated loot box, which had a rate of 15% to grant Ennui racer shards. This mandatory loot box purchase to unlock a single Racer caused another strong backlash from players.

Notes

References

External links