alongside the game's third season. Its full free-to-play release was on September 28, 2023.Compare and contrast older Disney kart racers Mickey's Speedway USA and Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour, both initially released in 2000.
Trailers: Announcement Trailer, Nintendo Direct Reveal, Early Access Trailer, Founder's Packs Trailer
Series Represented
- Mickey and Friends (Classic Disney Shorts): Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck
- Steamboat Willie: Steamboat Mickey, Steamboat Pete
- Aladdin: Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, Jafar
- Beauty and the Beast: Belle, The Beast, Gaston
- Hercules: Hercules, Megara, Hades
- Frozen: Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, Hans
- The Jungle Book: Mowgli, Baloo
- Lilo & Stitch: Lilo Pelekai, Stitch, Jumba Jookiba, Captain Gantu, Angel
- The Little Mermaid: Ariel, Prince Eric, King Triton, Ursula
- Monsters, Inc.: James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, Mike Wazowski, Celia Mae, Randall Boggs
- Mulan: Fa Mulan, Li Shang
- Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: Oswald, Ortensia
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Captain Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann
- Toy Story: Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, Bo Peep
- WALL•E: WALL•E, EVE
- Walt Disney World: Figment
- Wreck-It Ralph: Wreck-It Ralph, Vanellope von Schweetz, Fix-It Felix Jr., Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun, King Candy
TV Tropestorm:
- Allegedly Free Game: The game is free-to-play but Racers have to be unlocked by earning their enough of their shards through completing seasons and Limited Events, with only Mickey, Donald, and Goofy being unlockable through a tutorial campaign. All Racers have levels through which players must unlock by getting the necessary upgrade items, including energy drinks for all Racers, specific Racer items depending on their class, specific items depending on their collection (franchise), and finally specific epic items just for that Racer. Crew members Players also must keep earning Racer shards to raise that Racer's level cap, unlock their unique skills, add more Crew Member slots. Of course, players can purchase special packs and Tokens to get Racers and upgrade parts. All that being said, if a player has absolutely no interest in the single-player seasons and events, the ranked multiplayer, or even the Crew Members and cosmetic items and just want to race as their favorite Disney or Pixar character against their friends, there is the Local Freeplay offline single-player and multiplayer mode and Private Track online multiplayer mode, both of which allow everyone to play all available Racers in the game (at pre-determined levels depending on the chosen speed setting and without any Crew Members).
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can unlock different racing suit colors for each character. Many of them act as references to their source material, such as the Monsters, Inc. cast having suits based on the CDA agents or Mickey and Donald having suits colored to resemble their mainline outfits.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- If you get stuck on a wall and don't reverse for a few seconds, the game will respawn you in a better position on the track.
- For limited leaderboard events, Jumba will not appear as a random opponent because his unique skill targets the racer in first place and is very difficult to dodge. This ensures that you won't get hit and lose a potentially good time through no fault of your own. However, for the sake of fairness, Baloo won't appear either, so players cannot take advantage of his "pawpaws" (which look more like pumpkins) for speed boosts.
- For at least some gacha boxes that feature racers and crew members, primarily the standard Universal Box, if you max out the racer or crew at five stars then it's removed from the box so you won't get any more duplicates and the odds of everything else increases slightly. Some other gacha boxes, like the Multiplayer Box with customization parts, are built with limited prize pools to begin with so that every pull increases the odds of getting what's left.
- If you fall far behind the pack, you might be granted a stopwatch item which allows you to warp ahead to the middle of the pack to get closer to the lead.
- "Arabian Nights" Days: The Aladdin map takes place in the City of Agrabah, and features sections based on the Marketplace, the Desert, and the Cave of Wonders.
- Artistic License – Geography: The Kauaʻi track environment features Volcano National Park complete with an active volcano and lava flows. There are no active volcanoes on the real Kauaʻi, and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is located on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.
- Artistic License – Ornithology: Stitch's Epic Crew Member is called "Duck Family", but the icon depicts the swans from his The Ugly Duckling book. Then again, those swans are the family of the "duckling".
- Assist Character: Crew Members, representing your character's pit crew and offering different skill buffs, take the form of various characters within your character's franchise group.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: The soundtrack features EDM, rock, and electro-rock remixes of Disney songs to make the high-speed races more action-packed.
- Battle Couple: Several established Disney couples can race alongside each other on the track. February 2024 featured several Valentine-themed events to obtain special plates for several of the couples featured in-game: Mickey/Minnie, Donald/Daisy, Oswald/Ortensia, Beast/Belle, Hercules/Megara, Mulan/Shang, Mike/Celia, Stitch/Angel, Aladdin/Jasmine, Kristoff/Anna, and Eric/Ariel.
- Battle in the Rain: "Toon Village" takes place in a toony village undergoing a rainy thunderstorm.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Most of the animal and non-human characters (barring those from Mickey & Friends) wear racing suits that cover everything except their feet, hands, and heads.
- Big Fancy Castle:
- The Castle environment, based on Beauty and the Beast. The Beast's transformed servants put on a show for their guests racing in a specialized track inside for them.
- Arendelle has a section based on Elsa's Ice Palace.
- Bragging Rights Reward: Every character has a special diamond paint job and more elaborate victory animation that can be obtained by getting far enough in the ranked multiplayer mode. These don't enhance your character's abilities in any way and are purely for show.
- Breaking Old Trends: This was meant to be the first Disney and Pixar game developed by Gameloft for consoles, as all of their past output has been for mobile games, although the early access release of Disney Dreamlight Valley in September 2022 negated this. It is Gameloft's first competitive Disney game for consoles, though. However, this game saw its full release first in late September 2023, while Dreamlight Valley didn't leave early access until early December, so Speedstorm technically still took the trope before Dreamlight Valley did.
- The Cameo:
- The Crew Members serve as this for characters who Gameloft Barcelona deem as either not being important or interesting enough to be a Racer but are still worthy of a small game appearance or who they don't believe could be translated into Racer well for different reasons, such as having a body that cannot work for a race carnote or not having the right traits that they could work with for a unique skill.
- The House of Mouse makes an appearance in the Toon Village track for the first time in almost twenty years.
- Character Customization: You can customize each character's racing suit, victory animation, and kart with unlockable cosmetics.
- Comeback Mechanic: The stopwatch item which is granted to you if you fall far behind the other racers, allows you to get a fighting chance by quickly teleporting you around the middle of the pack.
- Competitive Balance: The characters' special abilities sometimes come with a caveat to counteract their utility such as Mickey and Minnie's specials helping those around them in addition to themselves, Baloo placing items on the track for himself that everyone can exploit, and Aladdin giving himself a speed boost while dropping coins that can fuel other racers' nitro meter.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Season races and Limited Events that have a recommended level for different difficulties are this if your Racer is at least five levels below the recommended level. The AI Racers will get very aggressive towards your Racer and one of the Racers will be at a much higher level and have near-perfect pathfinding so they would have an insurmountable lead, thus preventing you from winning and completing the necessary objectives and forcing you to upgrade your Racer first so you could have a fighting chance.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Certain elements are coded in specific ways as to easily identify what they do:
- Red: damage-based items like the shot/bomb skills and damaging track hazards.
- Blue: speed-based items like the rush/boost skills, boost pads, and grind rails.
- Green: protection-based items like the cloak/shield skills.
- Purple: trickery-based items like the hack skill.
- Costume Evolution: Each character has traded their usual attire for a color-coded racing suit.
- Cyberspace: "Arbee's Arena" is both this and the only Original Generation track in the game, taking place in a computer-generated (this game already being a 3D racer notwithstanding) world that looks like a partially-futuristic suburb floating on grey cybernetic upside-down pyramids. You know, as if an internet-connected AI decided to make a track of her own?
- Dash Attack: Each class can sideswipe nearby racers to gain a class-specific bonus:
- Speedsters get a small speed boost.
- Brawlers stun the target.
- Defenders gain a shield.
- Tricksters get a random level 1 common skill.note
- Deliberately Monochrome: Befitting their old-timey origins, Steamboat Mickey and Steamboat Pete, along with the Silver Screen map, are almost entirely monochrome. This even extends to their customization options (which are mostly different combinations of black, white, and grey).
- Eternal Engine: The Monsters, Inc. track takes place in the titular factory. It also features a few Slippy-Slidey Ice World elements, as it features a section based on the Himalayas.
- Excuse Plot: The opening cutscene provides the sole context as to why Disney and Pixar characters are racing against one another, which is basically a sentient AI did it. More specifically, the AI, who lives in a broken racing game arcade cabinet, loves Disney and used their works to make a kart racing game based on them, and somehow integrated them into and repaired her cabinet by causing a power surge in her arcade. Anyway, go race!
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Invoked in some of the starting voice lines for Elizabeth Swann, Jack Sparrow, and Belle, who don't seem to understand what modern cars are.
- Fragile Speedster:
- Speedsters can sideswipe opposing racers to get a small speed boost, gain large amounts of boost energy from driving over boost pads, and are more likely to get speed-boosting items like Rush and Boost. However, due to their emphasis on boosting, they're vulnerable to getting attacked by other racers if stuck in the middle of the pack and lack any innate offensive (like Brawlers) or defensive (like Defenders) options.
- Tricksters focus on trickery over offense or defense, being capable of getting extra items by sideswiping opponents and gaining extra boost by drifting. However, since they lack the power of Brawlers or the defensive capabilities of Defenders, getting hit can easily set them back a few seconds with no easy way to recover.
- Gangplank Galleon: The "A Pirate's Life" environment takes place in an old Caribbean port town with battling pirate ships and tentacles of a Kraken slamming down on racers.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Disney Villains Randall, Pete, Jafar, Hades, Gaston, Captain Gantu, Hans, Ursula, and King Candy are among the cast. Notably, the villains also drive for the same teams as their heroic adversaries.
- The Great Serpent: The Jungle Ruins tracks feature a massive snake (not Kaa) that slithers along the branches above the racers.
- #HashtagForLaughs: There were joke hashtags found throughout the game mainly "spoken" by the game's Original Generation AI character, Arbee, to the viewer. However, they were removed in Season 6: Under the Sea.
- Home Stage: Each collection/franchise (except for Walt Disney World, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit,note and WALL•E) has a home world to represent their series.note (Even Speedstorm itself, which only has the non-playable character Arbee, gets a track of its own with "Arbee's Arena".)
- Mickey and Friends:
- Modern: Toon Village
- Classic (Steamboat Willie): The Silver Screen
- Aladdin: Agrabah
- Beauty and the Beast: The Castle
- Frozen: Arendelle
- Hercules: Mount Olympus
- The Jungle Book: Jungle Ruins
- Lilo & Stitch: Kauaʻi
- The Little Mermaid: Atlantica
- Monsters, Inc.: The Factory
- Mulan: The Great Wall
- Pirates of the Caribbean: A Pirate's Life
- Toy Story: Andy's Room
- Wreck-It Ralph: Candy Kingdom
- Mickey and Friends:
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Epic crew members are by far the most powerful ones, being capable of boosting all of a racer's stats at once, increasing the level of their unique skill, and granting a common skill at the start of each race. The catch is that they are very difficult to obtain due to their rarity, and each Epic crew member is exclusive to a specific character (such as Pluto only being usable on Mickey and not Donald or Goofy).
- Interface Screw:
- The Hack Skill temporarily mirrors its victims' view of the screen on hit, which can throw off their momentum.
- Tricksters used to be able to mirror the opponent's screen (similar to the Hack skill) by hitting them with a Dash Attack. This ability was removed in Season 6.
- Jungle Japes: The Jungle Book's Jungle Ruins environment is naturally an Indian jungle-based track.
- Kids Driving Cars: Mowgli, Lilo and Vanellope are still represented as children like in their native canon and can drive vehicles, even though they are too young to legally drive (in Mowgli's case, he comes from a land and time without motorized vehicles at all, while Vanellope's is justified since she originated from a kart racing game, and the racers in her world are also children).Mowgli (on the Racer select screen): I'm big enough! Honest!
Lilo (on the starting line): I'm definitely allowed to drive this. - Leitmotif: Each of the franchises has one song that frequently gets played for them.
- Lethal Lava Land: Partially in some of Kauaʻi's track variants, which have a road that goes through an active volcano area with lava flows and dangerous jumps.
- Level Ate: The Wreck-It Ralph track is set in the arcade game Sugar Rush, a world made of candy. There is even a mountain made of ice cream part-way into the track.
- Level in the Clouds: Hercules's Mount Olympus, which is high above the lands of Greece.
- Macro Zone:
- Andy's Room is this, as all racers, Toy Story or otherwise, are brought down to the size of small toys. Bizarrely, all the racers are so small here that Hamm, RC, and Slinky Dog look giant!
- The Castle is also this; the various living objects and the Enchanted Rose are all bigger that the Racers, presumably because making them all at standard human sizes would not work in a tight indoor space.
- Mascot Racer: Speedstorm features various characters from across Disney competing to come in first on various courses. As shown in the trailers, each character has their own unique ability they can use to get further ahead.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Between several Disney and Pixar series.
- Mighty Glacier: Brawlers are the offensive powerhouses of the game, being capable of stunning nearby racers by ramming into them and gaining an extra boost every time they attack an opponent. However, if no opponents are around to attack, their boosting capabilities are limited. To emphasize this, many Brawlers have high speed and combat stats, but poor acceleration and speed.
- Mighty Roar:
- Sulley's unique skill, Fearsome Roar, has him loudly roar and damage nearby racers. It can be charged to have Sulley perform three smaller roars that last longer.
- The Beast's unique skill, Enchanted Rose, has him roar and stun opponents in front of him. If he uses the skill three times, he Turns Red and only gets his special skill from item boxes for the rest of the race.
- Mythology Gag: There are so many of these that this game has it own page for them.
- Nerf:
- On the initial early access release, Mike Wazowski's Hold the Door ability spawned two doors lasting on the track for up to twenty seconds that teleported players a considerable distance ahead or behind. A hotfix was released on May 16, 2023, that cut the teleport distances by 10% in both directions, halved the time the doors stay on the track (making charged activations riskier, since they cause the doors to spawn farther away), and made it so that only one door spawns upon normal activation (charged activation still spawns two doors). He was later nerfed again on June 8, 2023, with another hotfix, increasing the amount of time it takes for the doors to be usable (thus players ahead can more easily avoid them) and making them destructible via opponents' shields and invulnerability, which can also help deny the Mike player who spawned them from taking advantage of them. The Season 6 update in February 2024 cut down the teleport distances by another 10%.
- During Season 3, ʻOhana, Stitch quickly became a go-to Racer due to the charged version of his Experiment 626 ability, which saw him firing so many fast-moving plasma bolts that were hard to dodge without a shield, cloak, or invulnerability. Season 4, The Cave of Wonders, reduced the amount of time he spends firing his plasma blaster and made them slower, smaller, and reduced the amount of bounces off the track barriers they can handle before dissipating. Season 5, Let It Go, nerfed him even further by removing his invulnerability.
- Jessie and Steamboat Pete, whose unique skills are obstacle-based as well, now spawn fewer toys and ink blots respectively from Season 5 onward.
- Palmtree Panic: Lilo & Stitch's Kauaʻi is a tropical paradise of a track environment with sandy beaches, dense tropical jungles, the quaint little Kokaua Town, and an active volcano, but it's also the most technical track environment in the game with lots of tight turns, blind corners, dirt road bumps, and a freakin' active volcano.
- Perpetual Storm: The Toon Village environment always has racers driving through inclement weather, with lightning strikes even setting trees ablaze and causing them to fall. Not something you'd expect to see in a Mickey and Friends-based world.
- Radio Voice: Steamboat Mickey, Steamboat Pete, Oswald and Ortensia all have radio filter on their voices to reflect the old-timey feel of the cartoons they originally appeared in.
- Retraux: The Silver Screen tracks all consist of black and white roads, reflecting old Disney cartoons. This also applies to the Steamboat versions of Mickey and Pete, who speak with a filter over their voices to make it sound like they stepped out of a cartoon. The same filter also applies to Oswald and Ortensia.
- Shifting Sand Land: Agrabah, where you alternate between going through the city and into the Cave of Wonders itself.
- Shout-Out: There's a reference to a famous movie line that's not one of Disney's: one of the things that Meg can say on the starting block is "Take it easy out there! Last I checked, this isn't Sparta."
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
- The Factory (the Monsters, Inc. map) has a section that takes place in the Himalayas where Sulley and Mike were banished.
- The Frozen map takes place in the snow-covered kingdom of Arendelle. It also features a few Big Fancy Castle elements due to having a section based on Elsa's Ice Palace.
- The Wreck-It Ralph track features a section with a mountain made out of ice cream.
- Spotlight-Stealing Crossover:
- Of all the Disney series represented in-game, Mickey and Friends gets the most representation by far (being Disney's flagship franchise and all). To start with, it had the most racers in the launch roster (three where everyone else had two), and those racers get special focus as the Starter Mons that are the first ones you'll get to use. On top of that, it's had two major expansions with the Steamboat Willie characters in Season Two and Minnie and Daisy in Season Three (both accompanied by several new crew members), with Steamboat also getting its own map with The Silver Screen (although that has been part of the game in Season One, before Steamboat Mickey and Steamboat Pete were added). They also have by far the most cosmetics available to earn or purchase, especially in terms of racing suits and kart liveries that were added in later updates.
- On a lighter note, Lilo & Stitch, Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph each received slightly more racers and crew members than most seasons (5 and 15 respectively, instead of the standard 4 and 12), with Lilo & Stitch drawing from Lilo & Stitch: The Series for Angel (and her Epic crew Reuben) and some Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph racers having twice the kart customization options (wings and wheels) that most racers do.
- Stealth Pun: Toon Village has racers speeding in the middle of a storm.
- Stone Wall: Defenders excel in protecting themselves from enemy attacks, as they are more likely to get shield skills and can generate shields by sideswiping nearby opponents. They also gain extra boost energy from staying in the opponents' slipstream, easily allowing them to stay in the middle of the pack without taking damage. However, their offensive presence is lacking and they struggle with keeping the lead without an opponent to tail.
- Super Move Portrait Attack: When a racer uses their unique skill, a portrait of them performing a dynamic pose flashes on-screen for a second.
- Token Evil Teammate: Most collections (which are represented as a single team) feature at least one villain as a playable driver among the heroes, such as Randall from Monsters, Inc., Captain Gantu from Lilo & Stitch, Jafar from Aladdin and Prince Hans from Frozen.
- Toy Time: Andy's Room, of course. Racers drive on a track playset built In-Universe by Andy Davis for his toys to race around in, using some of his pre-existing toys as part of the track such as obstacles.
- Under the Sea: Fittingly, the Atlantica map primarily takes place underwater, with floaty physics that allow racers to stay in the air and retain boost energy for long periods of time.
- Vanity License Plate: One of the collectibles. Each racer has about four or five different custom plates that can be put on their kart, all with phrases relating to them in some way.
- Version-Exclusive Content:
- PlayStation Plus subscribers can freely unlock an exclusive avatar based on a specific Racer and an exclusive silver kart color and racing suit for that Racer, which rotates every few months. (Jack Sparrow was first, then he was replaced by Mulan, who was in turn replaced by Hercules and later Mickey Mouse.)
- The Epic Games Store has an exclusive free content pack that gives players a unique grey racing suit and kart livery for Goofy, plus five Universal Box Credits and five Chip 'n Dale Crew Member shards. Downplayed, though in that the suit and livery can be used on all platforms (and shards and Universal Box Credits are not platform-specific anyway).
- In an extremely minor multiplayer example, each player is identified with an icon in a circle indicating what platform they're playing on. Generically, this is a PC setup (a monitor and a computer case) for PCs, a gamepad for consoles, and a smartphone for mobile, shown only for opponents who are not playing on the same platform as the player. However, to the player and any opponents on the same platform as them, it will instead show the brand logo for the exact platform (including PC services) they're playing on. Furthermore, PlayStation uses a blue circle to indicate any PlayStation players, while all the other platforms use grey circles, even for brands affiliated with other colors.
- The Voiceless: Starting with Season 7, only a handful of racers get voiced dialogue, resulting in this trope taking effect with certain racers. So far, Fix-It Felix, Sergeant Calhoun, and King Candy are the only racers without voiced dialogue.
- Wutai: The Mulan map takes place in Imperial China, with a section based on The Great Wall.
- Your Size May Vary:
- Uniquely, the Toy Story characters are both bigger and smaller than they are in canon. On most maps, they're scaled up to human size. On their home map, where everyone else is instead scaled down to their size, they're much smaller to the point where Hamm, RC, and Slinky Dog look huge by comparison.
- Gantu, much like in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, is scaled down from his original film appearance to fit within the restrictions necessary for Speedstorm.
