KartRider is a popular racing game that has been in Korea for the past 15 years, since its debut in 2004. The game has an ever-increasing following with over 300 million players. The developers also released a mobile version called KartRider Rush+ ton satisfy the game’s growing number of players. NEXON KOREA launched an anniversary version, KartRider: Drift, to celebrate this milestone in 2019.

The remastered game serves as their first free-to-play racing game with cross-play compatibility. You will be able to play with your friends on either Xbox or PC. The first closed beta test started in December 2019, and the second test held in June 2020.

Racing has always been a popular genre in the gaming community, with several games ranging from KartRider to Need for Speed. KartRider: Drift is one title you need to watch out for in the genre. 

To start a race, you simply have to select your character, kart, and track. Players can access several customization options on the game. These customizations include skins, colors, and build variants for each character, cart. You unlock more elements as you progress through the game by winning more races on different courses.

The mechanics of the game is pretty simple; you need to steer, brake and drift at set points in a race. You can compare the stats of your cars to determine the best cart for a particular course. There are courses where your car’s drift is more important than the maximum speed or acceleration. You can check the mini-map for shortcuts on a track during a race. The mini-map is always on the right side of your screen, pay attention to it, and you have more advantage over the other players.

At first, you might find yourself always drifting off the road in races, but with time, you will find yourself drifting like an expert and winning races without breaking a sweat. You can pick between two racing modes, which are the speed and item race. In an item race, you will find pick-up items like buffs, weapons, and hazards on the tracks.

You can use these items to boost your performance in the race. These items include water bombs, missiles, magnets, seeker missiles, shields, water wisps, barricades, angel armors, cloud covers, and UFOs. They all have different effects on the carts. You can launch these items at the other players to slow them down for a while. Watch out for these items since they can trap you long enough to drop your race position.

You can switch between the items on your cart. However, you can only swap items five times in a race. So be sure to weigh your options before activating the feature. It might be what you need to win a race at times. The speed race is a standard race against other players. You won’t find any items in the speed mode. It would help if you practiced drifting to drive around sharp bends and tight corners smoothly.

Drifting charges your boost during a race, boosting your cart increases the speed of your car. There are certain times when your cart will receive instant boost charges. These small boosts are activated when you hit accelerate as soon as you see a ‘Go’ prompt on the screen.

You can also gain them by completing a drift or after getting hit by Missiles, Water bombs, or other attack items. There’s a training mode to help familiarize beginners with the controls and other parts of the game. Play the lessons on the training mode, and you’ll learn what you need to excel through the ranks. The lessons cover driving, drifting, boosting, racecourses, items, and several others.

There’s another mode called Time Attack, where you can practice driving in each of the tracks without interference from other drivers. It would help if you used this mode to sharpen your driving skills. You can start driving against real players once you complete races with high star ratings in Time Attack. There’s career ranking in the game, and your rank is accessible on the progress bar.

The bar fills up after completing a game. You can pick more rewards and earn more trophies to fill the bar quickly. You need to finish the daily challenges on the game to win these trophies. Another thing to admire about the game is its high-definition Unreal Engine 4 graphics. It features a simple, yet elegant, scenery with smoothly animated, fun-looking characters.

The recently concluded beta test offered access to four characters, but you can expect a lot more when it is formally released. The number of tracks was limited as well, but we can’t wait to see other impressive environments. The sound effects are relaxing and played at a volume low enough for you to concentrate on racing.