The best PS4 racing games span multiple sub-genres, from simulation and arcade to cart racers and extreme sports. Whether you're a car enthusiast looking to tinker with the smallest details to perfect your racing style, or simply want to drive fast (and maybe have some thrilling crashes), there's a wide variety of racing games on PS4 that are worth checking out. While all the racing games on this list are for PS4, you can also play them on PS5 thanks to backwards compatibility. Please note that our picks for the best PS4 racing games are listed alphabetically, not sorted.
Best Racing Games for PS4
Check out a list of the best racing games for PS4 below. The list contains a varied selection of racing games available on Sony's PlayStation 4 platform. You can check out our other list of free PS4 games.
18. Absolute Drift
Absolute Drift is more about accuracy than speed. As the name suggests, the objective here is to master the art of drifting through more than 30 levels spread across five different areas. Played from a top-down perspective with minimalist visuals, Absolute Drift is mechanically solid and quite relaxing. The electronic music playing in the background adds to the zen experience that Absolute Drift offers. If you're looking for a smoother racing game to relax, Absolute Drift is a great choice.
17. Burnout Paradise Remastered
With loads of spectacular crashes, ridiculous stunts and a wide variety of exciting game modes, the Burnout series is one of the best arcade racing franchises ever made. Although it's been more than a decade since the release of a new Burnout game, Burnout Paradise Remastered still works like a dream. The open-world racing game received updated visuals and performance on PS4 and comes with all post-launch DLC for the game. Whether you're playing solo or online with friends, Burnout Paradise Remastered offers a constantly refreshing racing experience. There are many varied objectives to tackle in Burnout Paradise Remastered, but you can also make your own fun and see what kind of destruction you can create.
16. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled combines nostalgia with modernity to create a sounding race car that will make you at least a little less sad that Mario Kart is not on PlayStation. While it's a remaster of the original game, it's also pulled from other entries in the series, while adding modern flourishes and new content to keep the experience fresh. Crash Team Racing has some of the best track designs in the cart racing sub-genre, and makes great use of them in its single-player adventure and various competitive multiplayer modes. This is a great racing game for adults who want to relive their childhood and children who are entering the track for the first time.
15. Descenders
Endlessly exciting, Descenders is a mountain biking game with an emphasis on speed and stunts. With tight controls and a beautifully designed physics system, the moment-by-moment action of the Descendants is superb. Where Descenders really excels, however, is in its world design. Randomly generated worlds are not common in the racing genre, and Descenders uses this feature to take you to great heights. From forests and barren lands to human-made trails and more, the Descendants' environments come alive (and blur for you in an instant) each time you begin your descent. Descenders has tremendous replay value thanks to the randomly generated worlds, and luckily, the loop never tires.
14. DiRt 5
Dirt 5 brought the series back to its purely arcade roots, offering a racing experience that's casual enough for newcomers to dive in and enjoy, while retaining enough depth to keep things interesting for a long time. It has a dynamic and cool weather system that actively changes how you should approach each race and an excellent mix of tracks to burn rubber throughout your long career mode. You can also create your own tracks in the new Playgrounds mode, which is an interesting addition that increases the level of variety available in Dirt 5. If you like racing fast cars but don't want to get into the essential details of vehicle performance, Dirt 5 lets you start running and never gives up on its enthusiastic and friendly tone.
13. Dirt Rally 2.0
If you're looking for a rally racing simulator that aims for realism, look no further than Dirt Rally 2.0. It's essentially the opposite experience of Dirt 5. Made for rally enthusiasts, this off-road racer has a unique handling system that mimics the unexpected conditions you'd encounter when moving at high speeds over rough terrain. With a wide variety of rally cars and great customization features, gearheads can tweak their races to suit their preferred playstyle. Dirt Rally 2.0 uses the FIA World Rallycross championship as its foundation, offering eight official circuits as well as tracks on multiple continents.
12. F1 2020
F1 2020 offers the most authentic Formula 1 experience in the series to date, not least because of its new My Team mode. Just like in reality, My Team lets you create and manage a Formula 1 team from scratch, giving you full control over everything from team colors to training facilities and more. F1 2020 does not abandon its traditional career mode; exists separately, giving players an abundant amount of solo content to choose from. And if you're interested in racing with friends, F1 2020 brings back split-screen racing to go along with online multiplayer. Although designed with realism in mind, F1 2020 has a great casual driving mode that makes it a stellar Formula One game for beginners too.
11. Gran Turismo Sport
While Gran Turismo Sport appears limited in content at launch, it has expanded significantly over the years to offer a more complete Gran Turismo experience. While not yet a full-fledged mainline game, GT Sport does bring enough content under the hood to keep you playing until Gran Turismo 7 finally launches. Gran Turismo Sport is almost exclusively focused on competitive online racing, with rotating competitions available at all times. It still looks and behaves like a Gran Turismo racing sim, which is to say it's excellent. With over 300 cars and 80 tracks, GT Sport offers a wide variety. And if you're not a competitive racer, a more traditional single-player campaign is also available. Still, this is a racing simulator that mainly focuses on competition. If you want to test your skills.
10. Horizon Chase Turbo
Inspired by old school arcade racers and console games like Out Run and Top Gear, Horizon Chase Turbo is driven by nostalgia. What you see is what you get here. Colorful but rudimentary visuals pull you right back into the arcade, and the emphasis on sheer speed with quick handling makes the Horizon Chase Turbo feel authentic. 3D models of cars racing against 16-bit backdrops give it a unique look that is showcased brilliantly across the game's 100+ tracks. While you can enjoy multiple solo cup series, Horizon Chase Turbo really hits its pace when playing split-screen multiplayer with three friends or trying to beat your friend's best time on a tricky track.
9. MotoGP 21
MotoGP 2022 is the last game in the long series of motorcycle racing. If you've played recent entries in the franchise, MotoGP 2022 doesn't do much to move the pointer, but it's still your best bet if you prefer two-wheel racing over four-wheel. A robust campaign mode lets you create your own team or join a real-life MotoGP team. For longtime fans, MotoGP 2022 is a real treat as it features over 120 riders. The track list is relatively small, but each one is elaborately designed and the moment-to-moment racing offers an excellent challenge that encourages you to really get to know your bike, the tracks, and your competitors.
8. Need for Speed Heat
Need for Speed Heat is primarily a return to form for a series that had been slipping into mediocrity for years. Like many games in the franchise, Need for Speed Heat has its own unique hook. As a street racer, you compete during official competitions when the sun is high. After the sun goes down, things get a lot riskier. You can compete in illegal street races and try to avoid less experienced cops who don't just want to arrest you – they want to rob you by any means necessary. Heat also has a well-implemented drift system that feels more realistic than the simplistic general handling of the car, which adds another layer to racing. Great personalization features also help to optimize your travels to your liking. The heat is at its best during the thrill of the chase, and luckily, there's a lot of that here.
7. Project Cars 2
Project Cars 2 is a grueling racing simulator designed for enthusiasts who prefer realism to fast-paced action. The handling system has been influenced by input from real racing drivers, which makes it quite demanding. While playing with a controller is useful, Project Cars 2 really hits its stride when playing with a racing wheel. In terms of authentic feel, it would be hard to find a racing game that beats Project Cars 2 when driving with one wheel. The level of realism extends to 24-hour daily cycles and dynamic weather and surface conditions, which are unmatched in the genre. Project Cars 2 is packed with elaborate tracks and over 180 tracks, from sports cars to IndyCars and rallycross.
6.Team Sonic Racing
Team Sonic Racing is Sega's answer to Mario Kart, and while it lacks the depth and polish of the Mario Kart franchise, it's still a lot of fun. Team Sonic Racing has a solid foundation thanks to great cart controls that are responsive and easy to grab and a wide range of cool tracks filled with Sonic embellishments. With three different racer classes that have their own unique racing styles and an emphasis on playing as a unit, Team Sonic Racing adds its own flavor to the cart racing genre.
5. The Crew 2
The Crew 2 is one of the weirdest racing games on this list, simply because it never decides what it wants to be. In that case, that's good. The Crew 2 is a consistently amazing open-world game that features cars of all kinds, boats, planes and motorcycles – all of which you can circle instantly. Fly off a bridge in a car and land on a boat. Pass skyscrapers in a jet and switch to a muscle car that plummets from the sky. The Crew 2 gives you free rein over how you approach its pretty wild premise. The open world map, which is a scaled version of the United States, is beautiful to explore. The many dedicated races and objectives help showcase The Crew 2's myriad of approaches, going from point A to point B.
4. Trackmania Turbo
Trackmania Turbo is different from most games on this list. Instead of beating your opponents on the track, your goal is to beat the track itself. The campaign has more than 200 courses spread across four exclusive environments. Every time you start the engine, it's a race against the clock in an effort to beat the best time. This is pure arcade racing on some seriously wacky tracks, each of which tests your skills and teaches you something new on how to approach the objective at hand. Trackmania Turbo also has a cool track maker that lets you make your own courses or randomly generate tracks that can be uploaded to servers for others to play.
3. Trials Fusion
Trials Fusion is an always engaging and often hilarious physics-based motorcycle game filled with absurd tracks that keep the action interesting throughout. While you can play local multiplayer races with up to four players, Trials Fusion is primarily a game about beating times and scores, whether they're preset track times or your friends' best scores. Trials Fusion can aptly be described as “sensitive” because it's easy to get greedy and get eliminated. It doesn't try to be realistic, but sticking to this crazy physics system is what makes Trials Fusion so fun to play. Despite the fact that you're maneuvering on a 2D plane, Trials Fusion has plenty of depth and rewards those who stick around to really master the physics and elaborate trails. Although there is a steep learning curve.
2. Wipeout Omega Collection
While it's unclear if we'll ever get a new Wipeout game, PlayStation users can still enjoy some of the best the series has to offer in the Wipeout Omega Collection. The compilation contains three anti-gravity runners: Wipeout HD, Wipeout HD Fury, and Wipeout 2048. All three games show a different side of Wipeout, which helps them complement each other in fun ways. Wipeout HD, of course, is a classic anti-gravity race on futuristic tracks. For a more action-packed experience, Wipeout HD Fury injects more combat into the mix. Meanwhile, Wipeout 2048 is a prequel that takes place before technologically advanced tracks were developed, which means you're racing in natural environments. The three experiences add up to create a special collection that's a lot of fun whether you're playing alone or against friends.
1 Wreckfest
A spiritual successor to the popular FlatOut series, Wreckfest is a demolition derby game that oozes style. As the name suggests, there are a lot of collisions and pileups at Wreckfest. The physics and crash systems are top notch, offering exhilarating spectacles of carnage. Between traditional Wreckfest racing and demolition derby crash fests, there's a ton of differentiated content to enjoy. Each vehicle in Wreckfest has a different handling system and overall feel, and you can also use an in-depth customization system to fundamentally alter the performance of your vehicles. The Wreckfest PS5 update will be released in June, but PlayStation Plus subscribers can grab the updated version of the game for free this month.
