We’ve been crying out for a new Ridge Racer game for some time, yet it seems that the world is no closer to being blessed with one. We might be further away than we thought, as footage of a cancelled entry into the series has leaked.
As picked up by Eurogamer, a post on subreddit r/gamingleaksandrumours has revealed several in-development game builds supposedly found on a Nintendo Switch devkit, with a new Ridge Racer game among those.
According to Eurogamer, the game was being developed by Bandai Namco Studios Singapore and would run on Unreal Engine 4.
This brief footage shows us entering an ‘Eastside Prix’ with scenic shots of a very primitive-looking track laced with trees and Aztec-style ruins. It shows four cars in a race (two different models), with UI styled similar to more recent entries in the series.
We can also see that this game would’ve used a three-bar nitrous system as seen on the PSP titles and backed by dance music that surely would’ve found a way into *that* Ridge Racer club night in Japan.
It’s unclear when this build of the untitled Ridge Racer entry is dated, but we suspect this to be a pretty early version of the canned game, given the low-poly textures and constant popping in and out of trackside objects.
That’s about all we know, and unfortunately, it’s likely to be all we’ll ever know – unless Bandai Namco decides to make an official comment on the footage. It’s unclear at this stage why the game was cancelled or if it ever progressed to anything more than this basic prototype.
For the foreseeable then, we’ll have to get our Ridge Racer fix when the second title in the series lands alongside the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2 in June. That’s if we can get away from playing Mario Kart World, anyway.
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