Wheelmates Launching on Steam in September of This Year!

June 6, 2026 | WheelMates, the co-op driving adventure where two players guide tiny RC cars through the secret-riddled house of an eccentric missing scientist from developer Firevolt, charges its batteries to launch on Monday, Sept. 7 on PC via Steam with a Friends Pass available at launch, as revealed today at Future Games Show. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions are currently in development.

Play the updated Steam Next Fest demo starting Monday, June 7. Learn more about the story by scanning selected objects, discovering memory cards that reveal details about the owner of the house. Revisit the clues and connect the dots in the Journal, debuting in the updated demo. Enjoy improved controls with more flexible handling settings, additional camera settings including free camera control, and Steam Deck support. 

Antennae at attention! Go offroading indoors as two RC cars in a maze-like laboratory home to oversized household objects covering up the strange experiments of a stranger scientist. Work together to get into small spaces and hard-to-reach areas, and discover secrets in playgrounds where normal appliances become comically large obstacles. Charge through environmental puzzles in a series of unlockable escape rooms on a journey through the Kitchen, Garage, Backyard, and other mysteriously closed-off, wide open crawlspaces.

Team up to tackle challenging tasks demanding collaboration. Communicate with one another to properly time each player’s role in every solution, and together unlock every location inside the house to learn the truth behind the professor’s disappearance. Upgrade RC cars with physics-based rope swings, powerfully magnetic wheels, and other helpful gadgets to turn teamwork into progress in unpredictably fun ways.

Ride through a puzzling house with a friend at any pace as WheelMates steers into shared problem solving skills between duos as the core framework fostering fun moment-to-moment gameplay without the pressure of performance.

Strap in for an unexpected ride when WheelMates launches on Steam for PC and Steam Deck on Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. A Friends Pass will be available alongside the Steam version, enabling two people to play with just one copy of the game. Play the updated demo today on Steam for PC and Steam Deck. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions are also in development for release at a later date. 

WheelMates supports 14 languages including English, French, German, Spanish (Spain + Latin America), Simplified Chinese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil + Portugal), Russian, Italian, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. 

For more information, join the Discord server, visit the game’s official site, and follow WheelMates on X, TikTok, and YouTube.

About Firevolt

An independent studio Firevolt combines its experience and knowhow to make its own co-op titles that bring new approaches and shared experiences to the world. 

Article by: Susan N.

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OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast - Retro Reflections - TBT

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast by developer Sumo Digital and publisher Sega AM2—PSP Throwback Thursday review written by Hamza. 2006.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.

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Designed as a racer but advertised and marketed as a driving experience, the original OutRun won the hearts of contemporary gamers and became a perennial classic over time – even acquiring the status of an unofficial synecdoche for racing games. Flash-forward a few good years, some major technical and graphical advancement later, and you get OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast– one of the most beautiful racing/driving games ever made… and still hold up to this day.

Everything about the game is care-free and relaxing... that is until you get into the later stages of the races. The sound of the rushing sea that greets you in the menu system is too blissful for words. The Hawaiian-reminiscent atmosphere that permeates the game provokes a sonorous feeling, an absolutely unheard of thing in a racing game. The truly resplendent production of the game halted me from frustrating myself silly every time I lost a race or failed to reach the specified target. Speaking of which, one of the missions is called Heart Attack Mode, in which you have to keep your girlfriend happy by adhering to her bizarre demands that often border on Symphorophilia.

If you're wanting an example to convince you, well one of the many things she asks you to do is ram into as many vehicles as possible. The more vehicles you comically collide into, the more happy she becomes. Next she will ask you to drift. With that done, she will then ask you to dribble a gigantic beach ball with your car until the end comes in sight... or hit as many ghosts as possible... or keep overtaking a long line of convoy!

This is exactly why I sometimes love games that relish in their silliness. Typing of the Dead - another Sega masterpiece - is not only borderline absurd; but almost a masterpiece in what it aims to be, and a serious contender in my book for the most entertaining video game ever made. Coast 2 Coast takes the improbability of an arcade racer and gives it a charm all of its own.

Most racing games, especially the modern ones, let you control and finetune several technical and cosmetic aspects of your vehicle. That much is standard. But hardly any racer lets you pick your own passenger, choose which track to burn rubber on mid-race, and which one music to listen to in the background. OK fine, maybe the latter is a standard feature in many racing games, but none of them contain the insanely irresistible, perfect-for-long-drives Magical Sound Shower.

It's surprising how I made it this far into the review without even mentioning Ferrari anywhere. The OutRun series have always stood out from the rest due to their licensed, and sublime, use of Ferraris as the player's only mode of transport. The original OutRun did for Ferrari Testarossa what Goldfinger did for the Aston Martin DB5. Just as how 007 made the DB5 synonymous with espionage and gadgetry, OutRun created an icon out of the Testarossa, and the poster car for all that is exotic, scenic, and gorgeous. I swear I could look at a Testarossa in real life and just watch the world of Coast 2 Coast whizz by in the car's windows. Other vehicles that are included in the game, but not limited to; the aggressive Enzo, the vintage Dino 260 GTS, the stylish 250 GTO, and the perennial world-wide favourite, the F50.

In conclusion, Coast 2 Coast is a very attractive racing game and a splendid title on the handheld. While it certainly has its shortcomings, namely the questionable collision detection and occasional flicker and lag, the overall product is a thing of undeniable beauty.


Score: 9 / 10

Note: Screenshots from all platforms that were available at the time can be found here at Moby Games.

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Taxi Chaos - PS4 Review

Taxi Chaos by developer Team6 Game Studios and publisher Lion Castle B.V.—Sony PlayStation 4 Review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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Taxi Chaos is, as best I can tell, a spiritual successor to Crazy Taxi. But how does it compare to your old memories of those arcade days? Is it a hit or miss? Is it worth the fare, or is it like being stuck in New York traffic? Well, I'm here to help you figure that out.

Taxi Chaos doesn't really have much of what could be called a plot. Basically you're a taxi driver in New York City, or at least a very small rendition of it, and you have to collect and drop off customers in order to earn as much money as you can during your rather short shift. You can choose between Vinny or Cleo, a veteran taxi driver and an “up and coming” influencer turned cabbie. Your choice of character doesn't really matter, but you do get to choose the vehicle with which you drive around picking up passengers. You only start with the one, but can unlock more through playing.

There are three modes available, all of which follow a similar set of mechanics. You drive a taxi around, stop to pick up passengers, drive them to their destination, then stop and let them off. I would suggest Free Mode to get yourself used to the game, as there aren't really any instructions or controls presented for you. As you're driving around, with or without passengers, there are cars you need to avoid on the road. While you can drive around them, you can also jump right over cars and small buildings. There are little sidequest style objectives as well you can pick up.

The key point however is that for the primary arcade style mode, you're on a timer. By picking up and dropping off passengers you can add a few seconds to the timer. Pick up passengers, do the best driving job to get a better rating and more cash from your passengers. In arcade mode, when you pick up a passenger you get an arrow indicating where they want to go. In Pro Mode this arrow is chucked and you need to prove you know New York streets like the best of cabbies. Swerving to avoid cars, jumping, and taking shortcuts gives you a combo bonus, so try your best to rack up the best combo you can.

So how does the taxi handle? Well, different taxis have different specs, such as speed and handling. The taxis, even the higher speed ones with poor handling, are pretty easy to control, and traffic is surprisingly sparse. This brings up the interesting fact that I'm not entirely sure how to classify Taxi Chaos. Is it a racing game? I mean, not really, since you're not really racing anything other than the clock. Is it an action game? Well, the gameplay isn't really hectic or anything, so it's not really action like. To be frank, it feels way to “lazy” to be New York traffic, and the biggest problem is how the car handles off road.

You see, well things are all well and fine on road, but as soon as you start jumping or driving offroad, things start getting a little bit different. Car physics are like driving a styrofoam block on anything not flat. You can't drive up a small ramp, and hills are a bit of a problem as you can easily get thrown off. Jumping is also entirely dependant on the slope of where you're jumping, and may not always go in the direction you want.

Summary

So, how does Taxi Chaos stack up? Well, it's definitely not going to make you go praise it out on the streets. It was certainly fun for a period of time, that period being about an hour, after which it loses its novelty. I never really played Crazy Taxi as kid, but Taxi Chaos doesn't really instill in me a desire to play Crazy Taxi. Taxi Chaos isn't very chaotic, but there are taxis.

There is a bit of personality in the interactions your chosen cabbie has with the passengers, but these get reused so quick you'll know them by heart after about twenty minutes. There isn't nearly enough draw for the game to really warrant much attention. Yeah, I might have had fun with it for about 15 to 20 minutes, but it isn't something I would suggest for anyone looking to really invest themselves in.

Score: 5 / 10

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