Last updated on January 6th, 2025 at 01:57 pm
Older fans of racing games may remember the original series of Shotuko Battle and Tokyo Xtreme Racer games developed by Genki . And now Tokyo Xtreme Racer is set to return in 2025 after 18 years since the last PC or console release.
The original Shutoko Battle ’94 game was released for the Super Nintendo back in 1994, inspired by the infamous street racers on the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo. Later games were then developed for the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, PlayStation 2 and 3, and the Xbox 360., with names switching between Shutoko Battle, Tokyo Xtreme Racer and the spin-offs including Kaido Battle (which focused on touge racing), depending on the series and whether it was a Japanese, American or European version of the game. Plus the anime-inspired Wangan Midnight.
Making sense of it all is migraine inspiring, but the most recent console games were released by Genki in 2006 (Shutoko Battle Ten, or Import Tuner Challenge in American and Europe for the Xbox 360), and Wangan Midnight for the PS3 in 2007. Since then, we’ve only seen a couple of Shutuko games for mobile.
Now it appears that Genki and the Tokyo Extreme Racer series will return in 2025 with a PC release. Originally the games used nicknames based on the chassis code of each car until Japanese manufacturers forced Genki to invest in licenses to race on the authentic locations. In each game you can typically race in legal events during the day to earn money, and at night to increase your reputation, with a career mode challenging you to become the best driver in your area and defeat various boss drivers.
There’s not a lot of information available for the 2025 release of Tokyo Xtreme Racer beyond driving ‘real cars on meticulously recreated courses’ to ‘compete with powerful rivals’. And the mention of being able to ‘slip through other cars’ suggests the AI traffic will also play an important part. Beyond that, there’s no confirmed release date within 2025, so it’ll be interesting to see how things develop closer to the launch.
In the meantime, the closest experience is the Shutoko Revival Project for Assetto Corsa, which you can find via the link to their Discord, with new cars and traffic features being constantly released. But obviously this doesn’t really have a career mode, so that might be what makes Tokyo Xtreme Racer stand out in the modern era.
You can keep up with the latest Tokyo Xtreme Racer news, updates and more here. And if you fancy experiencing the previous games in the series, you can find them on eBay here and here.
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