A two-minute footage of an unreleased Ridge Racer game has surfaced.
The clip, showing an unfinished state of the game in debug mode, begins with a loading screen that shows the controls with a diagram of the Switch console as it loads a familiar track to Ridge Racer 7 fans, Lost Ruins.
The gameplay itself is understandably janky, but the clip shows that this unannounced (and unreleased) Ridge Racer game was carrying over the mechanics of Ridge Racer 7, including the three-bar nitrous system as well as the track.
Bandai Namco was reportedly developing a new Ridge Racer game for the Nintendo Switch. Bandai Namco Studios Singapore was in charge of leading development. Seven years later since our reporting of that rumour, there has yet to be a new entry to Ridge Racer. So should the rumours be true (and should this leak be legitimate), the game has been quietly cancelled since then.
The poster of this leak, @resethepicture on the social media many still call Twitter, says the development build dates back to January 6, 2017 (the Switch launched in March the same year), and was running on Unreal Engine 4.
According to r/GamingLeaksAndRumours on Reddit, this is one of a few other leaks obtained through a devkit.
Bandai Namco has not released a new mainline Ridge Racer game since Ridge Racer 7, a PS3 launch game, in 2006. The last big-budget entry to the series, Ridge Racer Unbounded by Bugbear Entertainment (now known for the Wreckfest series), released in 2012.
Since then, the Ridge Racer series lies dormant, with only re-releases and ports of old titles coming to new consoles, including Ridge Racer Type 4 now available on PS4 and PS5, and the original Ridge Racer coming to Nintendo Switch 2 as a launch title via Hamster’s Arcade Archives.
The Ridge Racer series was one of the pioneers of 3D racing games. The arcade and console releases highlighted the fun of driving fast cars with a simple-to-learn-hard-to-master controls that steers aggressively far from a realistic simulation of car physics. It’s the poster child of arcade racing games.
Ridge Racer V, Ridge Racer 6 and Ridge Racer 7 were all launch games for the PS2, Xbox 360 and PS3, providing a barometer for gamers on how good the graphical leap these consoles were able to provide.
As it is right now, Ridge Racer remains a dormant franchise.