Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush Review – Fun Arcade Racing Held Back by an Unnecessary Open World

Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush lands on PS5 as a competent arcade racer built around the iconic toy car brand, but Push Square's review finds it a game at odds with itself — the core racing is genuinely enjoyable, while the open world wrapped around it feels like an obligation rather than a feature.

The review praises the moment-to-moment racing, which captures the kinetic, over-the-top energy you'd expect from Hot Wheels — loops, boosters, and absurd track designs all translate well to the screen. The arcade handling is snappy and accessible, making it easy to pick up and fun to push for better lap times. Where the game stumbles is its open world structure, which the reviewer argues adds padding without adding purpose. Driving between events in a largely empty sandbox slows the pace without delivering the exploration or discovery that would justify the design choice.

Hot Wheels has had a complicated history in gaming — the brand peaked with the beloved Hot Wheels: World Race and Acceleracers era in the early 2000s, and more recent attempts to revive it as a major gaming franchise have had mixed results. Infinite Rush appears to be another swing at making Hot Wheels a live-service-adjacent, content-rich experience, borrowing the open world template that has dominated racing games since Forza Horizon popularized it. The problem is that not every racing game benefits from that structure — tighter, event-focused racers often deliver more consistent fun.

The final verdict from Push Square sits in solid-but-unspectacular territory, recommending it to Hot Wheels fans and arcade racing enthusiasts while flagging the open world as a genuine drag on the experience. If the developers trimmed the fat and leaned harder into the pure racing, Infinite Rush could have been something special.