Hot Wheels Unleashed Reviews

Hot Wheels Unleashed is ranked in the 60th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
Ken McKown
Top Critic
7.5 / 10.0
Sep 28, 2021

Hot Wheels Unleashed is a game that tugs at my nostalgia for collecting these cars. I just wish the aggressive DLC plans and grinding for new cars didn’t sour that experience so much. When I was playing I was having a blast. The track design and handling are superb and when I got a new rare car I was super excited. Hopefully they tweak some of the requirements for unlocking cars and I hope the season passes are not overly priced for their own good. I would love to see this game flourish and become a staple of arcade racers. It feels like a renaissance of the genre, and I want Unleashed to be there for a long time coming.

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M3
Top Critic
Sep 27, 2021

Toy cars, delightfully crunchy tracks and high speeds are what await in Hot Wheels Unleashed. Although the variety is different in terms of both race types and the feeling in the vehicles, there is nothing to stop the race from being terribly fun. In its best moments, Hot Wheels Unleashed can even measure up to timeless classics like Ridge Racer 7, Micro Machines V3 and F-Zero GX.

Review in Swedish | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Oct 3, 2021

Hot Wheels Unleashed is an excellent arcade racing games with some truly inventive and crazy tracks, wonderfully recreated Hot Wheels toys that drive beautifully and the visuals to back it all up. Unfortunately an in-balance of reasonably long to extremely long tracks and their many hazard risks make it too easy to get frustrated when struggling to reach top spot, and the track builder while very well detailed fails to make the user experience anything but pleasant.

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Unscored
Oct 1, 2021
Hot Wheels Unleashed | Review in 3 Minutes video thumbnail
7 / 10
Sep 27, 2021

As it stands right now, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun racer whose fantastic selection of cars makes up for its relative lack of varied course environments. With updates and DLC it has the potential to become a brilliant mess of licensed properties in the way the best mash-up games are, but what's here is a solid enough foundation to start from, even if it's a little samey at launch.

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7.5 / 10.0
Sep 27, 2021

Hot Wheels Unleashed is the Hot Wheels racing game that we have been waiting on for a while. It delivers outside of a few hiccups.

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Sep 27, 2021

Hot Wheels Unleashed feels less like a cohesive racing experience and more like a framework where more and more Hot Wheels branded content can live as the months go on. This comes through not only in the lackluster presentation but in the currency system that robs players of any sense of urgency to complete missions. It doesn't feel satisfying to go through an hour of races and grind up currency to get a single box that contains a duplicate of an already-unlocked car.

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8.5 / 10.0
Sep 27, 2021

‎Hot Wheels Unleashed is an experience that manages to combine the mystique of collecting so pure and innocent of miniature cars with the most daring races. It offers variety and quality wherever you look at it and the talent of Milestone makes the franchise shine that is synonymous with a market so loved by all collectors.‎

Review in Spanish | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Sep 27, 2021

Despite some balancing issues and some issues with how cars are obtained, Hot Wheels Unleashed is still a ton of fun thanks to its breakneck-speed racing, a detailed track editor that would make your inner child jealous, awesome collectible cars, and packed single-player content. Add in the nostalgia for playing with Hot Wheels cars and tracks as a kid, and you might find it to be one of 2021's hidden gems.

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90 / 100
Sep 27, 2021

Hot Wheels Unleashed is one of the most entertaining racing games of the year and a love letter to fans of this franchise. Without a doubt, an unmissable entry.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

Sep 27, 2021

Hot Wheels Unleashed starts off blazing fast but ends up as a shallow kart racer.

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7.3 / 10.0
Sep 27, 2021

Hot wheels Unleashed is, in some ways, a brilliant arcade driving video game. Simple, immediate, fun and adrenaline just enough, supported by an excellent technical sector and which offers one of the best circuit editors that have been seen in recent years.

Review in Italian | Read full review

Unscored
Sep 29, 2021
I recommend: Hot Wheels Unleashed video thumbnail
Gameblog
Dopamine
Top Critic
7 / 10
Oct 16, 2021

For a first draft from Milestone on this license, this Hot Wheels Unleashed is doing with a positive result. This is mainly due to a well-studied drive and rather well-designed circuits that respect the spirit of small friction cars. Once the driving is mastered, it is fun to go from boost to boost, studying the best way to use nitro and optimize trajectories. We can hope that this constitutes an encouraging basis to make it a real must-have on a future version. There are unfortunately too many flaws that reveal an imperfect finish.

Review in French | Read full review

80 / 100
Sep 30, 2021

For Hot Wheels fans a must, for friends of arcade racers also a recommendation with compromises.

Review in German | Read full review

7.5 / 10.0
Sep 28, 2021

It's no surprise given Milestone's pedigree that Hot Wheels Unleashed is a mechanically sound and confident racing title as it boils down the true essence of Hot Wheels and puts on a showcase exactly why they're a beloved pastime. The bloated story mode does little to obfuscate the game's skeleton crew of modes, though I think the game will find resilience through a community of online racers and their wonderful, imaginative creations.

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Sep 27, 2021

All in all, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun arcade racer that has a lot going for it, and unlike other arcade racers, it has enough going for it to keep you coming back. Even after the campaign is completed, there's still lots to do, such as finding all the secrets, getting the best time on all the tracks, the basement, and the track creator. Even if this wasn't a Hot Wheels game, this title is a solid arcade racer, and I'd recommended it to anyone who's looking for a racing game that isn't too serious.

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80%
Sep 27, 2021

A cracking little arcade racer from a studio better acquainted with motorcycle sims, Hot Wheels Unleashed is like sticking both hands into a big toy box of die-cast cars, pulling them all out, then thrashing them around a racetrack. And what is there not to like about that?

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Jay Ball
Top Critic
4 / 10.0
Sep 28, 2021

This is the kind of game a cheap uncle buys a kid for Christmas out of the bargain bin giving little thought beyond, “little Timmy likes cars so I’ll buy him this thing.” Sadly, it will only keep kids entertained for as long as it takes them to realise the odds are stacked against them. While some real passion has gone into the transition of some much-loved toys into digital form, the challenge of Hot Wheels Unleashed is just too great for its target audience. Without significant fixes, it will do little more than frustrate all who pick it up.

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9.7 / 10.0
Jan 5, 2021

'Hot Wheels Unleashed' handles like a dream for toy cars.

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