The best racing games to play right now

Racing games have been central to video game culture since day one, yet this genre still sometimes flies under the radar. Many of the games play to specialized, niche audiences, yet the genre is also vastly popular — Nintendo’s Mario Kart 8 is the fifth-best-selling game of all time. There’s also a general perception of unchanging sameness to games about getting to the finish line first, yet there’s a wide variety of racing games out there, catering to just as wide a variety of play styles. An all-ages party game like Mario Kart is obviously very different from a real-world driving sim like Gran Turismo. But there’s also a huge variation within subgenres. Among arcade racers, Burnout is intense while Wreckfest is chill, and there’s a world of difference between a mass-market motorsport game like F1 and a hobbyist sim platform like iRacing.

If you know you like racing but you’re not sure where to start — or which other corners of this gaming sphere you might want to investigate — we’re here to help you find the right fit. Below, you’ll find our picks of the best racing games to play right now, all available on current platforms, and some included in subscriptions like Game Pass and PlayStation Plus.