Hot Wheels Unleashed has, well, unleashed its first gameplay trailer for eager fans to see. Developer Milestone and Mattel livestreamed a showcase for the game earlier today, giving Hot Wheels and racing fans a peek into the upcoming racer. 

The video shows off pre-alpha footage of a race in progress. Perhaps the coolest element Hot Wheels Unleashed is that it looks to be to-scale with actual Hot Wheels toys/tracks. By that, I mean you’re a tiny car racing in a big world. The demo takes place in a garage, with the topsy turvy track weaving through and around shelves and even into ceiling vents. 

The game doesn’t feature any Mario Kart-esque power-ups (in case you expected such things), but is definitely an arcade-style racer that emphasizes drifting and boosting to get ahead. Oh, and there’s also a big ol’ glowy-eyed spider that lurks at one of the checkpoints, ensnaring unlucky drivers with its webs. Just thought you might want to know that before watching. Check out the pre-alpha gameplay footage below. 

The showcase also revealed six of the game’s 60-plus vehicles: Rodger Dodger, Twin Mill, Rip Rod, Night Shifter, Dragon Blaster, and Sharkruiser. Cars sport various attributes and rarity levels and can be customized with designs of your own creation. Custom skins can be uploaded to an online database, where you can also download the creations of others. Milestone confirms that more cars will be added post-launch DLC (both free and paid). 

How Wheels Unleashed features a full track editor, where players can construct their own elaborate courses that can be shared with other players in the community. For single-player, there’s a career mode complete with boss fights (yes, boss fights). More social players can race against others in online multiplayer or locally via two-player splitscreen. 

You can watch the full 40-minute developer showcase here. Hot Wheels Unleashed launches September 30 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. 

How do you think Hot Wheels Unleashed is shaping up? Let us know down in the comments!

Twitch streamer and speedrunner Niftski has demolished the world record for a speedrun in Super Mario Bros., clocking in what’s being called a “perfect” run at 4:54.948. That’s right, four minutes and fifty-four seconds, with a little bit of change. I don’t know when the last time you decided to take a trip through the Mushroom Kingdom was, but that’s fast… really, really fast.

https://t.co/A39u2akFns THE 55 BARRIER IS FINALLY BROKEN! This is the single greatest accomplishment out of anything I've ever done with this game! Huge thanks to everyone who supported me on this grind!! — Niftski (@Niftski) April 8, 2021

In speedruns for many classic games, seconds are all that separate the record from other competitors. While anything is possible, this new run is being called perfect (or close to it) by others in the speedrunning community, as apparently everything lined up immaculately on every end of things. Obviously, this includes the incredibly skilled speedrunning preparation, practice, and precise play from Niftski. Sometimes, all factors need to really line up to glean that additional and sometimes miraculous split second to make a speedrun ascend to greatness. Super Mario Bros. is obviously a title with no shortage of speedrunning attention, as numerous folks have attempted to make Mario’s journey faster and faster over the years, ever since its first outing on the NES before any sort of speedrunning was a competitive practice. Warp pipes, am I right? Check out the run right here!

In this particular case, it really does come down to milliseconds, as a cache of other incredible speedruns have the Mario adventure down to 4 minutes and 55 seconds proper. Shaving off the milliseconds in this particular run makes all the difference, and while speedrun records are constantly in flux, this one might be “the one” for Mario.

With that said, you never know when something new can be discovered or an advanced tactic can be tried with speedruns across the board, so others are certain to try to find a way to shave off a moment. So while this run is definitely perfect for now, a more perfect run could theoretically be discovered in the future… Does that make sense? Whether or not that happens could take years or more, as the 4:55 standard has been the wall for quite some time now, but it’s all about trying out every angle for new challengers.

You can check out Niftski’s streaming adventures on Twitch here. Do you enjoy speedrunning? Have you ever tried it? Is this run amazing? Let us know in the comments!