Software:Disney Speedstorm

Disney Speedstorm
Key promotional artwork
Developer(s)	Gameloft Barcelona
Publisher(s)	Gameloft
Producer(s)	Yura Liapin Josh Abrams Rodolfo Nunez
Engine	Jet Engine
Platform(s)	Android iOS Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch WW: 28 September 2023 iOS, Android WW: 2023
Genre(s)	Kart racing
Mode(s)	Single-player and multiplayer

Disney Speedstorm is a free-to-play kart racing game developed by Gameloft Barcelona and published by Gameloft. It features various Disney and Pixar characters racing vehicles on tracks themed after the worlds of their films and franchises. The game was released in a pay-for early access on 18 April 2023 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, with a soft launch on iOS and Android on 1 August 2023. It left early access on 28 September 2023.

Gameplay

Disney Speedstorm is a free-to-play kart racing game with a roster composed of characters from various Disney properties, such as the Mickey and Friends, Pirates of the Caribbean, Monsters, Inc., Toy Story and Beauty and the Beast franchises, among others. Various minor Disney characters appear as "crew members" that provide stat boosts and other enhancements for characters from their affiliated collections (franchises), such as the Orange Bird serving as a Crew Member for Figment.

The gameplay is similar to Mario Kart. Racers, as the game refers to its playable characters, can drift to improve their cornering and charge their nitro boost, which can only be used when the boost meter full. Racers also get a small drift boost from long drifts (indicated by their tires glowing blue), which also gives them an extra boost charge. Racers can sideswipe other Racers to knock them aside, jump to reach higher grounds or dodge obstacles, offensive power-ups or other Racers, perform aerial stunts off designated jumps for a small speed boost upon landing, and grind on designated blue rails to also gain nitro boost. Racers can also pick up various power-ups, called "skills", by driving through sprites with the image of Arbee, the game's emotive AI mascot, on them. These skills include offensive weapons that stun Racers, shields that protect Racers from stuns, cloaks that make Racers intangible and invisible, nitro boost charges, rushes that provide sudden bursts of speed, and hacks that flip a Racer's screen, potentially confusing them. Skills can also be "charged" to cause different effects; for example, a charged shield allows a Racer to stun another Racer who drives into them, at the cost of not being protected from being stunned. The availability of the various skills depends on the Racer (except in "Single Skill" races, mentioned below); for example, some Racers can receive and use shields while others can receive and use cloaks.

Game modes

The game includes various different single-player and multiplayer modes. Single-player modes include "Starter Circuit", a series of events divided into chapters focusing on a single racer (specifically Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy; Mulan, Hercules and Jack Sparrow previously had their own dedicated chapters during the first two seasons) that effectively serves as the game's "tutorial", limited events, which offer rewards for completing specific objectives or for getting a fast time on a leaderboard compared with other players online, and Season Tour, a limited-time campaign mode that changes each new content season. Multiplayer includes ranked multiplayer, where players race to earn points to unlock tiers of rewards for each of their unlocked Racers, regulated multiplayer, a separate ranked multiplayer (with its own set of rewards that change weekly) that puts all Racers at the same performance levels, "Private Track", which allows players to set up their own custom races online with friends or invited players, and "Local Freeplay", the game's only offline mode, which features custom races for one to four players (one or two players on older consoles) in split-screen multiplayer.

The races themselves are available in different types that feature different gimmicks: "Classic" is a traditional race; "Single Skill" forces all Racers to use the same power-up skill (usually an offensive item such as a mine); "Floating Objects" have speed boosts and power-up items floating above the ground, thus forcing Racers to jump to reach them; "Fog Challenge" covers the track in a dense fog—limiting visibility—and removes the minimap from the player's heads-up display; and "Last One Standing" is an elimination race where after a short (and declining) amount of time passes, the last place Racer either loses a "shield drone" and is teleported ahead on the track to try to avoid falling back to last or is eliminated if they have no more drones remaining. In the season two update in June 2023, the game added two new race types called "Color Match" and "Follow the Leader"; the former type forces players to pick up power-up items corresponding to one of two colors—green and purple—each of them is assigned to as indicated by the HUD and an underglow effect beneath their vehicle, switching between colors during the race, while the latter adds a long slipstream trail behind the race leader that provides a speed boost to the racers following the trail.

Characters and maps

As of November 2023, the game has a total of 45 playable characters, referred to as Racers, from fourteen Disney media franchises. Additionally, each franchise, except for the Disney Parks and WALL-E, also has an affiliated map (each featuring multiple track layouts), with Mickey Mouse & Friends having two (one based on modern Mickey Mouse media and one based on classic black-and-white shorts such as Steamboat Willie), while Disney Speedstorm itself has an original environment called "Arbee's Arena".

The game also features a wide voice cast, most of whom reprise their respective characters from their original works.

Overview of characters and maps in Disney Speedstorm

Origin	Character	Voice actor	Map	Release date(s)/season(s)
Aladdin	Aladdin	Scott Weinger	Agrabah	28 September 2023 (Season 4: The Cave of Wonders)
	Genie	Jim Meskimen
	Jafar	Jonathan Freeman
	Jasmine	Linda Larkin
Beauty and the Beast	Beast	Robby Benson	The Castle	June 2022 (Alpha season: Honor and Glory) (Belle, the Beast, and The Castle map) 28 September 2023 (Season 4: The Cave of Wonders) (Gaston)
	Belle	Julie Nathanson
	Gaston	Richard White
Disney Parks	Figment	None	18 April 2023 (Season 1: Unafraid)
Disney Speedstorm	Arbee§	Unknown	Arbee's Arena	N/A
Frozen	Anna	Kristen Bell	Arendelle	30 November 2023 (Season 5: Let It Go)
	Elsa	Danielle Bisutti
	Hans	Santino Fontana
	Kristoff	Jonathan Groff
	Olaf	Jake Green
Hercules	Hades	James Woods	Mount Olympus	June 2022 (Alpha season: Honor and Glory) (Hercules, Meg, and Mount Olympus map) 28 September 2023 (Season 4: The Cave of Wonders) (Hades)
	Hercules	Tate Donovan
	Meg	Susan Egan
The Jungle Book	Baloo	Joel McCrary	Jungle Ruins	June 2022 (Alpha season: Honor and Glory)
	Mowgli	Adan Carrillo
Lilo & Stitch	Angel	Tara Strong	Kauaʻi	31 July 2023 (Season 3: ʻOhana)
	Captain Gantu	Kevin Michael Richardson
	Jumba Jookiba
	Lilo Pelekai	Micah Aliling
	Stitch	Chris Sanders
The Little Mermaid‡	Ariel‡	Jodi Benson	Atlantica‡	February 8, 2024 (Season 6)
	Prince Eric‡	Christopher Daniel Barnes
	Ursula	TBA
	TBA	TBA
Mickey Mouse & Friends	Daisy Duck	Tress MacNeille	Toon Village The Silver Screen	June 2022 (Alpha season: Honor and Glory) (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Toon Village map, and The Silver Screen map) 1 July 2023 (Season 2: To Infinity and Beyond) (Steamboat Mickey and Steamboat Pete) 21 August 2023 (Season 3: ʻOhana) (Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck)
	Donald Duck	Tony Anselmo
	Goofy	Bill Farmer
	Mickey Mouse	Bret Iwan
	Minnie Mouse	Kaitlyn Robrock
	Steamboat Mickey	Bret Iwan
	Steamboat Pete	Jim Cummings
Monsters, Inc.	Celia Mae	Roxana Ortega	The Scare Floor	18 April 2023 (Season 1: Unafraid)
	Mike Wazowski	Carlos Alazraqui
	Randall Boggs	Piotr Michael
	Sulley	Christopher Swindle
Mulan	Fa Mulan	Ming-Na Wen	The Great Wall	June 2022 (Alpha season: Honor and Glory)
	Li Shang	BD Wong
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit	Oswald	David Errigo Jr.	None	30 November 2023 (Season 5: Let It Go)
	Ortensia	Audrey Wasilewski
Pirates of the Caribbean	Elizabeth Swann	Eliza Schneider	A Pirate's Life	June 2022 (Alpha season: Honor and Glory)
	Jack Sparrow	Jared Butler
Toy Story	Bo Peep	Annie Potts	Andy's Room	13 June 2023 (Season 2: To Infinity and Beyond)
	Buzz Lightyear	Tim Allen
	Jessie	Joan Cusack
	Woody	Jim Hanks
WALL-E	WALL-E	Ben Burtt	None	30 November 2023 (Season 5: Let It Go)
	EVE‡	Elissa Knight		February 8, 2024 (Season 6)

Soundtrack

The music is done by a team of four musicians (Vincent Labelle, Nicholas Dubé, Francis Collard and Martin Courcy) remixing classic Disney and Pixar tunes.

Development and release

Disney Speedstorm is developed by Gameloft Barcelona, the developers of the Asphalt games 8: Airborne and 9: Legends, and was designed to be a high-speed racing game based on Disney's franchises and characters. It was made using the same game engine Asphalt 9: Legends used, Gameloft's in-house Jet Engine. Alexandru "Sasha" Adam, VP and studio manager, Gameloft Barcelona explained, "The gameplay mechanics, the racer abilities and the location design were all tailored to serve our vision of a fast and gripping competitive experience."

Announced in March 2023, the game was released in early access for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 18 April 2023. A trailer for the game was released on 9 September 2022 at the D23 Expo.

On 30 June 2023, Gameloft announced that the game would leave early access, entering its intended free-to-play period, on 28 September 2023, following the conclusion of the game's third season.

On 1 August 2023, Gameloft soft launched the game on iOS and Android alongside the game's third season update. The soft launch began in Spain and Romania, with plans to expand the soft launch to the Philippines , Brazil , Vietnam, Mexico, Australia , Taiwan, Denmark , Norway , Sweden, Austria, and Ireland over time.

Downloadable content

On 27 March 2023, Gameloft released a trailer announcing three "Founder's Packs" that would be available during the game's early access period. The Founder's Packs, which were required for early access, all contained Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck as unlocked racers (with the Deluxe Founder's Pack adding Mulan and the Ultimate Founder's Pack adding her, Hercules, and Jack Sparrow), plus a choice to immediately unlock Baloo, Belle, Beast, Elizabeth Swann, Li Shang, or Mowgli; Tokens (the game's premium currency; 4,000 Tokens for Standard, 7,000 for Deluxe, and 12,000 for Ultimate), two (or three for Ultimate) Golden Pass Credits (unlocking the Golden Pass, the game's battle pass system), exclusive racing suits and kart liveries for each of the immediately unlocked racers (depending on the player's chosen tier), exclusive Donald Duck kart wheels and wing (Ultimate only), and an exclusive player avatar and profile motto.

As a free-to-play title, all content in the game (apart from the Founder's Pack exclusives) is added via seasonal content updates, which are added approximately every two months. Each season adds four or five new racers from a newly-added franchise of focus for that season, a new map based on that franchise, and new "bonus" racers not affiliated with the season's focused-on franchise that are made available mid-season, as well as new crew members and customization options for the racers.

Reception

Disney Speedstorm received "mixed or average reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. 56% of critics recommended the game on review aggregator OpenCritic.

John Hansen of Push Square said while they had reservations with the free-to-play monetization, they thought the game had a lot of potential and summarised by saying "if you're a Disney fan, it's a good way to mash together some of your favorite old movies and battle it out on the racetrack."

Chris Scullion for Nintendo Life praised the gameplay but criticized the performance issues of the Switch version and felt that the game's monetization would deter some players. Luke Reilly of IGN found the game had too few tracks and was overly repetitive for its then-asking price, while criticizing its excessive monetization scheme.