Screamer does not ease you in. Inside seconds of the primary race, a automobile zoomed previous me and detonated — elements scattering throughout a rain-slicked tunnel — as a result of an opponent activated Strike mode and clipped the wall at full pace. That is the tone of this anime-inspired fight racer, which is form of like Wipeout meets Mario Kart, however as an alternative of choosing up shells to shoot on the competitors, each automobile is supplied with a highly effective machine referred to as the Echo, which steadily converts defensive power into offensive firepower. Right here, it’s a must to weigh your selections rigorously as an alternative of hoping to drive over a explicit merchandise. The satisfyingly advanced useful resource administration system beneath offers Screamer a tactical spine that neither of these video games tried. After a few hours with a pre-release PC construct, the arcade racing already has a assured mechanical identification — quick, bodily, and surprisingly deep — and whereas the story mode serves primarily as a tutorial for these methods, the arcade racing is the place Screamer’s identification really shines. What I performed means that Screamer’s fight racing basis is robust sufficient to hold the load the developer is inserting on it.
Sync or Swim
Screamer’s central system is constructed round two useful resource meters that sit on reverse sides of the HUD, and the interaction between them units it aside from the fight racing pack. On the left, Sync — the defensive useful resource — builds passively over time and actively via expert play: cornering nicely, timing gear shifts, sustaining pace via turns. Sync powers your Increase (maintain LB for a sustained pace improve) and your Protect (faucet RB, which prices one full Sync tank and supplies momentary safety in opposition to incoming Strikes and Overdrive hits). Whenever you spend Sync on both of these actions, it converts into Entropy, the offensive meter on the proper facet of the display.
Entropy is the place issues get harmful. Two bars of Entropy activate Strike (press RB), which grants a momentary pace burst throughout which any opponent you collide with explodes — a full KO that removes them from the race quickly. Fill all 4 Entropy tanks and also you unlock Overdrive (click on each thumbsticks), which turns your automobile into a flaming battering ram that detonates every thing it touches. The catch is deadly: throughout Overdrive, hitting any observe barrier detonates you as an alternative. It is probably the most highly effective instrument in Screamer, and it punishes even a slight misjudgment with the identical immediate dying it dishes out.
The conversion loop is what makes this greater than a commonplace boost-and-shoot racer. Boosting spends Sync however generates Entropy, which implies aggressive drivers who continuously burn pace are additionally passively constructing towards their fight skills. Shielding spends Sync and straight banks one tank of Entropy, so even a defensive play feeds the offensive meter. Every race turns into a rolling calculation: do you burn Sync on a enhance to shut the hole, or financial institution a Protect to each defend your self and cost towards a Strike? Do you spend two Entropy bars on a right away KO try, or maintain out for the complete Overdrive? The system teaches restraint via its personal logic reasonably than via punishment, and even on balanced problem, the races produced a rhythm that felt strategic reasonably than purely chaotic — I felt like I used to be making actual selections at 200 miles per hour, not simply button mashing.
The proper thumbstick handles drifting, and that is the management that makes Screamer’s dealing with really feel distinct. Slightly than braking into corners, you pull the proper persist with execute a drift that whips the automobile sideways via turns with out dropping significant pace. When you internalize the two-stick rhythm — left for steering, proper for drifting — the motion stops feeling such as you’re combating the automobile and begins feeling such as you’re commanding it. There’s additionally an upshift system: over the course of a race, you manually shift gears to extend your high pace, which layers a development curve onto every race reasonably than simply the meta-game. The vehicles have weight to them, too. Not the sluggish, input-delay variety — extra just like the satisfying heft of one thing that wishes you to really feel each collision and each wall scrape. Consecutive clear upshifts with out collisions additionally speed up Sync era, rewarding precision past particular person inputs. In the meantime, hitting a barrier at pace prices you momentum however does not destroy you (until you are in Overdrive), which retains the racing forgiving sufficient to remain enjoyable whereas the fight methods layer on the strain.
Constructed Totally different
Screamer’s preliminary boot expertise demonstrates stunning care. Gamers can select between a Fast Begin, which throws them straight into the motion, or a Guided Setup that walks them via video, audio, and accessibility choices. The accessibility suite is especially complete, that includes: full one-handed management remapping for both the left or proper hand, full with computerized throttle and the flexibility to reassign each enter to a single facet of the controller; deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia colorblindness filters with adjustable depth on a scale of 1 to 10; independently scalable subtitle and menu textual content sizing; and a tinnitus discount filter with configurable frequency (default ten kilohertz) and acquire (default damaging twelve decibels). This degree of audio accessibility is uncommon in racing video games, and its upfront inclusion, reasonably than being buried in a submenu, is commendable.
Streamers, in the meantime, will instantly admire the licensed audio content material toggle. A single change disables copyrighted music earlier than going reside, eliminating the necessity for third-party workarounds. This small inclusion demonstrates an understanding of how individuals really play and broadcast video games in 2026.
This preview was performed on PC at a 3440×1440 ultrawide decision, the place the visible fashion appeared spectacular. The arcade modes ran easily on medium settings with DLSS set to balanced, delivering strong visuals: neon-soaked tracks popped with coloration, automobile fashions confirmed seen collision injury, and the sense of pace remained sturdy even with out maxed-out post-processing. The graphics menu is extremely granular, providing particular person sliders for anti-aliasing, post-processing, results, shadows, reflections, international illumination, texture high quality, foliage, and shading, in addition to upscaling choices throughout Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR 4.0, and TSR, with body era help for suitable {hardware}.
One closing notice: Screamer presents 5 AI problem tiers, starting from Very Simple to Very Laborious, together with driving aids, together with arcade throttle (computerized full acceleration), neural throttle and brake help, neural steer and drift help, and neural dealing with for cornering and wall avoidance. Whereas these are helpful choices, they’re hidden throughout the customized sport settings reasonably than being offered in the course of the preliminary setup. For a sport that in any other case prioritizes accessibility so successfully, burying the driving aids behind layers of menus appears like an oversight that might unnecessarily problem much less skilled gamers throughout their preliminary races.
Full Roster
Every of the fifteen characters is break up throughout 5 groups of three — one Chief and two Members per squad — and brings a distinctive passive potential that meaningfully alters their playstyle. For instance, Frederick’s Reaper’s Dance empowers his Strike and grants bonus Sync on KO, however makes him explode on contact with observe limitations whereas Putting — a high-risk, high-reward tradeoff. Hiroshi’s Unstable Increase extends enhance period the longer you maintain it, rewarding gamers who can preserve clear racing traces. Roisin’s One Extra Freckle reduces Strike’s Entropy value and permits it to chain repeatedly, turning her into a relentless close-range menace. Solely a handful of characters have been accessible within the arcade construct, however the variations between them have been pronounced sufficient that swapping rosters modified your method to the identical tracks.
The character and world design leans closely into an anime aesthetic, which units the tone for Screamer’s hero shooter-esque vibe. Screamer’s opening cutscene makes use of totally animated, cel-shaded sequences to introduce its event forged — veterans and newcomers assembling for the Screamer Match, run by a determine named Gage who installs the Echo machine on each automobile. The voice appearing, at the least within the transient cinematic that performed earlier than the crashes started, is commonplace English-dubbed anime: serviceable, often tacky, and tonally in step with the artwork fashion.
The Echo system — which in gameplay phrases is the Sync-to-Entropy useful resource loop — is positioned within the lore because the bridge between narrative and mechanics, justifying why these racers can blow one another up. It is an formidable framework. Nevertheless, the preview construct’s story mode, which incorporates six episodes of anime-driven narrative with particular race guidelines, capabilities successfully as a tutorial for Screamer’s methods however struggles with pacing and presentation. The dialogue incessantly interrupts races mid-action to ship exposition, and at the least from my first impressions in the course of the opening segments, the character writing lacks the persona wanted to justify the dramatic framing. It is purposeful, however the arcade modes stay the stronger draw.
Guidelines of the Street
Arcade mode, the place I spent most of my time for this preview, presents considerably extra customization than the style usually supplies. Three preset race varieties — Free For All (all fifteen racers on the grid), Leaders (simply the 5 staff captains), and Members (the ten sidekicks) — every produce distinct aggressive dynamics. Free For All is most chaos, with fifteen autos jostling for place as Strikes and Overdrives erupt throughout the pack. Leaders is tighter and extra private: a five-racer dash the place each KO issues. Members sits within the center, providing ten-racer fields with a totally different tactical taste, since sidekick skills have a tendency towards extra specialised capabilities.
The customized ruleset editor is the true shock. You possibly can alter lap counts as much as 9, set competitor numbers as much as sixteen, and toggle from a lengthy listing of modifiers that reshape the racing expertise: deactivate Overdrive fully for a pure racing mode; disable all combating mechanics to take away Strikes; toggle off particular person character expertise; pressure everlasting Overdrive for each racer from the opening lap; alter passive Sync era charges; activate Energy Shift (the place Lively Shifting unleashes a huge pace surge); allow Unstable Ecosystem mode the place all racers are completely weak to KOs; or activate Gage’s Best, which prevents autos from dropping elements on collision — basically a no-destruction beauty mode. I did not check each permutation, however the breadth suggests critical potential for community-driven rulesets and customized aggressive codecs.
Group Race provides one other layer. Duo and Trio variants enable blended groups throughout factions, so long as a Chief is current, and scoring combines closing placement factors with KO tallies. Smashing your personal teammates hurts your mixed whole, which creates an attention-grabbing wrinkle when everyone seems to be combating for place in the identical pack. The map choice throughout the preview’s preliminary tracks — Port, Downtown Run, Route 1N, Stadium Olympus — presents a sturdy mixture of environments, and I even seen a fifth map unlock as a reward for taking part in the mode. Tight city corridors lined with neon signage give strategy to wider circuits with sweeping elevation modifications, and day versus evening settings noticeably have an effect on visibility and environment. Repeated arcade play additionally unlocked a new character, new music, and beauty objects, hinting at a development system that rewards continued engagement — although how deep that development goes stays an open query.
Ready for Inexperienced
After spending a few hours exploring the arcade modes, what emerged is a fight racer with a genuinely intelligent useful resource system, significant character differentiation, and a customized ruleset editor that might give Screamer actual longevity. The Sync-to-Entropy conversion loop forces gamers to suppose two steps forward, spending defensively to construct offensively. This tactical layer elevates Screamer’s racing above the standard grab-a-pickup-and-fire template. Milestone’s experience in crafting racing video games shines via in each drift, enhance, and well-timed Strike.
Nevertheless, some huge questions stay. It is unclear whether or not the writing of the a lot broader marketing campaign arc in the end does justice to the character-driven construction, whether or not the pacing between cutscenes and races finally ends up feeling earned, and whether or not the marketing campaign’s particular guidelines add significant selection past what exists within the arcade mode. These unanswered questions are central to Screamer’s total attraction, however for now, Screamer’s sturdy racing basis warrants consideration, and I sit up for its upcoming March 26 launch on PS5, Xbox Sequence, and PC.