The Best Kart Racing Game of 2025
By Xavier Chavez
The Karters Main Menu. (Screenshot by Xavier Chavez)
The kart racing landscape is filled with legacy characters that have reigned for decades. These characters are accompanied by the release of sequels every few years.
Nothing is different in 2025, so far both 'Mario Kart World' and 'Sonic Racing: Crossworlds' have dominated sales and filled player bases in the genre. However, a new contender has arrived.
Coming from a small studio of eight developers total, yes only eight people, 'The Karters 2: Turbo Charged' has made some noise in the indie gaming world. Produced by Pixel Edge Games, this game had been in development for four years and is a direct sequel to the failed original 'The Karters'.
The new game released on Jul. 17, 2025 for $29.99 to rave reviews and currently has over 700 reviews on Steam’s user-based review system. In fact, over 95% of these ratings are in the “very positive” label, which makes it one of the most highly rated games on Steam.
The Karters 2 has its basic necessities for the kart racing genre such as: weapons, speed pads, large jumps, items, tracks, karts, wheel customizations and crossplay. The game is available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
Special game modes like online head to head, time trials, arcade versus A.I. opponents and a battle arena are accessible in-game as well. Players can also invite others to make a clan and race against other clans, similar to the famed mobile game 'Clash of Clans'.
The Karters gameplay. (Screenshot by Xavier Chavez)
One of the biggest inspirations of this game is the 1999 PlayStation 1 classic, 'Crash Team Racing'. It copies the drift mechanics by using a turn to start the drift and 3 bars to activate each boost. After 3 boosts a new turn must begin, but the after-boosts, otherwise known as “reserves” can provide a little extra speed for a few seconds without starting another drift.
The big difference which separates this game from its inspiration is that the reserve boost can be kept up and increase speed by every drift. However, players can still be stopped on the tracks and brought back to regular speed if hit by an item or if a drift is discontinued.
Due to this drift system, there is a higher skill gap between the top performers and the casual gamers. Not to mention, the low player count already leads to a highly competitive online scene. Although this may turn off new racers, the high speed paired with successful drifting becomes addicting.
The Karter’s mod featuring Shadow the Hedgehog. (Screenshot by Xavier Chavez)
Another big reason as to why this game is making noise is the heavily supportive modding community. There are over 200 mods to choose from between the tracks, characters, wheels and karts themselves. Unfortunately, console gamers may not have the freedom to download all mods due to trademark infringement laws.
These mods are constantly updated with modded tracks used for online play as well. This adds longevity and creativity to the game since tracks can be derived from any game, as long as the data can be extracted. Even in the online scene, players can place votes for new tracks to be raced upon in-game the following week.
Like most games nowadays there is a shop, however everything in the shop is free. The shop only includes modded items which are downloadable at the click of a button.
There is also a Discord server hosted by the developers and mod team which announces updates and glitch fixes. An open discussion area is also available for players to voice opinions on something regarding the game.
With a passionate community of 5,000 racers, developers, modders and, most importanly. stellar gameplay, this game is here to stay.