Summary
If you stumbled across this in the arcade and dropped a few quarters for a quick race, you'd probably have a great time. But to buy this at full price to play at home, you’d probably regret that purchase. Play Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition at a real arcade, and not at home!
Developer – Cradle Games
Publisher – Game Mill
Platforms – Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S|X, PS5 (Reviewed)
Review copy given by publisher
Remember the last time you walked into an arcade and found that racing cabinet with the bucket seat, the oversized steering wheel, and the bass so loud you could feel it in your chest? Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition wants to capture that exact feeling and deliver it to your couch. Raw Thrills, the studio behind the underrated Cruis’n Blast, has brought their 2022 coin-op machine to PS5, promising all the explosive, physics-defying chaos that made the original a fan favorite.
There’s no story to speak of here, and honestly, that’s exactly what you’d expect from a game that is meant to be played in an arcade. This doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a direct port of the 2022 cabinet experience. Don’t expect Dom Toretto and his crew to show up for any dramatic heists or family speeches. The franchise connection exists purely through vehicle selection and a few location nods to the films, like the Havana streets from The Fate of the Furious and Abu Dhabi from Furious 7. You pick a car, select your track, and race. That’s it.
The core racing mechanics capture that unmistakable coin-op DNA, for better and worse. Races resemble theme park rides more than traditional competitions, constantly pushing you forward through explosive set pieces and over-the-top moments. You’ll smash through the glass windows of the Marina Mall, crash straight through a church and out the other side, or find yourself suddenly racing along the deck of a cruise ship. The absurdity works in the game’s favor when you embrace the chaos.
However, the transition from arcade to DualSense controller hasn’t gone smoothly. The steering is twitchy and imprecise, lacking any tactile feedback. Cars control similarly despite having different stats for speed, acceleration, and maneuverability. The loose, unpredictable responsiveness makes cornering frustrating rather than satisfying. Developer Cradle Games struggled to translate the wheel-based controls effectively, and it shows in every race.
The control scheme itself also has some baffling decisions. You’re told that double-tapping R2 performs a wheelie, but later that same double-tap also initiates drifts or leans into turns. You literally have to lift off the accelerator to perform these moves, which slows you down at the worst possible moments. At least the nitro boost is thankfully mapped to the X button.
Progression is about as barebones as it gets. The game presents its six tracks in sequence, and it doesn’t particularly care whether you win or lose. There’s no currency system, no meaningful unlocks, no career mode structure. The only real incentive to replay races is unlocking Furious Mode for each of the vehicles. Win enough races with a specific car and you’ll unlock this mode, which increases your nitro count from three to ten per race. That’s the extent of character or vehicle development. You can customize cars with different color schemes, but that’s about it.
The difficulty selection is equally simplistic. Choosing a difficulty level just determines which of the six tracks you start on, but you’ll eventually race through all of them anyway. The only difference is that opponents become more aggressive and challenging. Rubber banding keeps races artificially close until the final stretch, where whoever saved enough nitro and stayed in the top three positions can boost to victory. There’s minimal strategy beyond that.
You’ve got only six tracks and eight cars. Once you’ve raced through the tracks with each vehicle and unlocked their Furious Modes, you’ve essentially seen everything the game offers. A local versus mode supports two-player split-screen multiplayer, which adds some replayability if you have a racing buddy, but there’s no online component whatsoever. For a thirty-dollar game, I expected more content. After a few hours, you’ve exhausted all the material, and there’s little reason to return.
The title runs flawlessly on PS5, maintaining smooth frame rates throughout even the most chaotic moments. There are no technical hiccups, no slowdown when the screen fills with explosions and debris, and loading times are brief. The settings offer only wheel sensitivity adjustments and audio controls. There are no accessibility options, no assist features, and no way to customize the difficulty beyond the track selection system.
The visual presentation bursts with popping colors and maintains that distinctly retro aesthetic throughout. Each track features recognizable landmarks from its real-world inspiration, though they’re exaggerated to cartoonish proportions. That said, this is unmistakably a PS3 game dragged into 2025 with minimal upgrades.
The vehicle models look decent enough, capturing the essence of their counterparts from the Fast & Furious films. Explosions and destruction effects provide solid visual feedback when you ram opponents or crash through environmental hazards.
The soundtrack captures that generic but energetic “arcade buzz” perfectly. The tracks are upbeat without being particularly memorable. You won’t find yourself humming these tunes after turning off the console, but they serve their purpose during races. Engine noises are surprisingly weak though.
If you stumbled across this in the arcade and dropped a few quarters for a quick race, you’d probably have a great time. But to buy this at full price to play at home, you’d probably regret that purchase. Play Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition at a real arcade, and not at home!
