The last 24 hours have been very exciting for racing games. A big update was announced for Gran Turismo 7 late yesterday afternoon, which I couldn’t even write about because I was already busy writing about Forza Horizon’s long-awaited journey to Japan.
The GT7 news is well covered at this point, so what I’ll focus on instead is Tokyo Xtreme Racer. I reviewed the new entry in Genki’s cult-classic series when it hit Steam Early Access back at the start of the year, and I loved it. In fact, one of the only complaints I had was that you needed a PC—and a decently powerful one, at that—to run it. Well, Genki is finally addressing that shortcoming with the announcement of a PlayStation 5 port. Hallelujah.
This is great news, and I’m especially happy for our own Andrew Collins, who loves these games as much as I do but prefers to do his street racing on a console. TXR left Early Access today on Steam; with this, the game now costs $50 instead of $30, but comes with a lot more content and plenty of quality-of-life improvements that it lacked at launch. Better yet, if you already bought the game in Early Access, Version 1.0 is simply a free update for you. Generous as ever, Genki.
The PS5 reveal took the form of a stinger at the end of one of TXR’s typical car reveal videos—this time, for the Lexus LFA. Genki hasn’t yet said when the game should land on Sony’s console, but hopefully it won’t be too long a wait.
Meanwhile, those of you who already own the game on PC should like what you find after today’s update. There are a bunch of new cars, including Honda and Lexus models; new enemies, aero parts, and wheels; an optional alternate perk tree that makes it easier and less grindy to progress, purchase, and upgrade vehicles; engine swaps; and 30 frames-per-second support for less powerful hardware, like the Steam Deck. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and I didn’t get this update in advance, so I’m looking forward to exploring it in the coming days.