Ridge Racer Unbounded is launching this week! We are super excited to have the final game in our hands and see the servers already filling with player-created cities.

We’ve got lots of sweet new footage available, both screenshots and trailers. Find them on our Facebook page!

To prepare for future projects, including both next-generation console hardware and mobile/tablet systems, we are expanding our team and starting a new team in a new city – Tampere, Finland. If you’re in the area and interested in working with us, please get in touch.

City Creator work in progress screenshot

The press were shown the City Creator during behind closed doors previews at Gamescom and as previews are rolling in, here’s the deal in our own words! It’s so good to be finally able to talk about the City Creator, as it’s by far the feature we’re the most excited about.

The Ridge Racer Unbounded City Creator allows you to build tracks just like the ones you’ll play in the shipped version of the game. Making these tracks is super easy. The goal is that everyone will make their own cities and share them online.

While it seems very simple indeed, this is actually the same tool we’re currently using to put together the tracks on the disc.

Making a new track is as simple as choosing what type of environment you’d like to drive in (suburbs, downtown, docks, construction sites, …) and then snapping pre-built blocks together. It literally takes a minute to create a track of the same quality that’s on the disc. You can mix and match different environments.

Everything you see working in-game comes assembled for your convenience – civilian traffic, AI, those big white in-world HUD texts, all that juicy destruction, incuding collateral and destruction targets. You just snap them together any way you like!

You may be wondering about variety as you’re using pre-built building blocks, but fear not! Because it’s not just about the tracks themselves. Your city is comprised of a selection of your finest tracks, combined with all the rules you want to play with. So you get to set the game mode and all associated details when publishing your tracks as part of your city.

If you’re a fan of all-out destruction, your city can include destruction events only. Or if you’re after a pure racing exercise, maybe your city is all about clean races. It’s your choice. Design a challenge and publish it online!

You’ll be discovering new cities every time you play and dominating them – if you’re successful in beating all the events in them.

Now, we know there are some of you out there who would really want to get down and dirty with the editor, moving things around in much higher detail, even if it takes more time. We can’t promise anything yet, but we really want to have you covered, as well… Look for more news in the near future.

We were at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany last week to show the City Creator to the press. At the same time everyone could play the game on the showfloor. In this video we’ll show you what’s in the showfloor demo.

Note that this is work in progress, pre-alpha code. We’re not even done adding features yet, let alone polishing graphics, handling and all that. We’re just excited to be able to show the game at this early point!

If you missed Gamescom, you can come try the game for yourself at Eurogamer Expo on 22-25 September.

Thunderbolt Games “The graphics, even this early, are excellent, particularly in regards to vehicle deformation. [...] Ridge Racer Unbounded is all about racing and destruction and the team at Bugbear is letting the gameplay do the talking. Even in this early build, there was a great sense of speed and freedom. [...] Hopefully it will live up to the promising demo that I got to take in today.” - Matt Wadleigh

Giant Bomb video interview with Jeff Gerstmann

Destructoid “Crash and create cities [...] I was glad to see that Developer BugBear Entertainment (FlatOut titles) has kept all the original style and approachability of the classic Namco racer [...] The Finnish studio obviously has love for the series, so it seems they’re taking care to preserve the Ridge Racer feel and look, even with this radical addition. It’s early, but I see what they’re getting at, and I think it looks like a lot of fun. [...] Ridge Racer Unbounded is one to keep an eye out for.” – Dale North

The Guardian “The granddaddy of the arcade racing genre is not slowing down into retirement, it is accelerating into the evolving universe of the 21st century driving sim.” – Keith Stuart

Eurogamer “The Finnish studio has a reputation for making excellent driving games that blend chaos and humour with a canny precision. [...] Unbounded is the team’s most dynamic title yet: concrete turns to powder, cars crumple in millions of unique ways following millions of unique impacts [...]” – Christian Donlan

Computer And Video Games “The epic corner slide is the first hint of how Unbounded feels to play – and it definitely looks like it’s adopted the Ridge Racer arcade style, with plenty of the aforementioned drifting and power boosting on straights. [...] It’s clear then that Ridge Racer Unbounded is doing something very different – but very well.” – Andy Robinson

Take a look behind the scenes at Bugbear’s Helsinki studio. What is the co-operation with the Japanese production team like?