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5 incredible user-made tracks to check out in Hot Wheels Unleashed
J
John Walker
The game also comes with an in-built means to make and share your own tracks, which means there is an absolute wealth of user-created courses you can download and play. However, you might want to be a bit discerning when picking through them all, because given the tools and the opportunity, a lot of people are prone to just see how many loop-de-loops they can put in a row and call it a day.
To save you the hassle, we’ve gone through and found some of the most interesting and well-liked user-made tracks to add to your game, and we’ve tried to keep the excessive loops to a minimum.
It’s worth noting how to access these tracks, as it's a bit specific. The easiest method is to choose Quick Modes from the options at the top of the title screen, and then pick Time Attack from the short list. You’ll need to pick a car first, but afterward, hit either Left Alt or Y on your controller to get to the Community tracks, and under the default “All,” select where it says “No Filter” and it’ll bring up a search box. Type in the name of the track and you’ll finally be there. And if you love it, don’t forget to “Favorite” it, so it’s far faster to find next time.
Upsie Dupsie
Created by: JamestheViktor
Set in the Skyscraper scene, this is a course that embraces the magnetic tracks of Hot Wheels Unleashed in an interesting way. Most of the level is played upside down, held to the tracks by the inexplicable force of magnetism, which forces you to think in reverse when it comes to jumps. Leap too high, and you’re going to land on the wooden boarded floor of this half-built construction site, so you’ll need to stay close enough on jumps that you’re pulled back up again. Cornering is excellent, too—too many user-made maps have corners where you fly off willy-nilly, but there’s something really interesting about how this track requires you to balance speed and magnetism to stay attached to the road above you.
Runter
Created by: jukoct
We said we’d try to avoid loop-de-loops, but never mentioned spirals. That’s the overriding theme of the Batcave-set track Runter. It’s an absolutely bonkers course which combines some enormous stretches of track at vertigo-inducing heights with descending spirals of tightly curved road. And if that weren’t enough, the outsides are lined with fans, all trying to blow your car down the middle.
That’s not actually as unfair as it first sounds, because sometimes falling through can be a far faster route to the next checkpoint, but you’ll have to get very lucky. Most of the time, it sends you hurtling off into the void. Thankfully, the level is extremely well-checkpointed, so the rapid restarts will set you right back in front of that particular challenge.
There’s even a section of fake wall (very much evoking that classic ‘60s Batcave vibe) that sees you skimming the surface of the water to reach the next stage. It’s a very tough level, but one that’s rewarding to master.
Tftt
Created by: Gealx3
You’ll need the Looney Tunes DLC for this one, but it’s well worth it. This is the most enormous track—it’ll take you a good five to ten minutes to complete a single lap—and at first glance, it has that vibe of a user-created level that tries to include everything. The thing is, that’s not the case: This is a really carefully put-together course.
In fact, Tftt is a deft demonstration of great track design, properly understanding core elements of Unleashed that are missed by so many home-made tracks. It begins very simply, lots of fun stretches, no real risks, and then begins to introduce trickier elements with all the appropriate flagging. So many of the maps you’ll find when randomly playing levels will have numerous sections where you fly off the sides because of poor design, rather than challenging routes, but here it’s all meticulously fair. Even the enormous floating jumps are well-signalled, and playing this course helped me get far better at those elements where you need to rotate your car to neatly land on a piece of track on another plane.
The Looney Tunes setting means it’s bright and cheerful, but it’s the methodical design of a course that looks like spilled spaghetti that makes this really shine.
Master’s Opus
Created by: FloofQueenEmily
Talking of massive, brilliantly designed levels, there’s Master’s Opus. Again, you’ve got a meaty 10 or more minutes of track here (the first time, certainly), and again, it’s a superbly crafted piece of work. But this time, think of this skate park-set trial as an obstacle course.
It begins innocently enough with some lovely verticals and nifty jumps, all put together as if by the developers themselves. And then at about the 50% mark, there’s a jump that absolutely flummoxed me. But I had to get it. It ended up more like a platform game than a racer, as I retried and retried, using different techniques, until eventually, by pure skill (utter luck) I landed what had seemed impossible.
The rest of the course offers similar challenges (although none quite so hard, thank goodness), forcing you to rethink your approach until you find a method that sees you through the next checkpoint.
Hall of Legend
Created by: Swole Golisopod
After all that complication, it’s nice to get back to an exquisitely well-designed racing track. That’s what Hall of Legend offers: a fantastic, fun course that’s designed to let you get good at it.
Just a couple of minutes long, this is a track that’s all about drift. In ways that even the game’s own courses often get wrong, every bend here seems to have been meticulously refined to let you feel amazing as you skid through without punishing barriers or nasty surprises that force you to bail. Instead, it’s buttery smooth, all about perfecting those turns to shave seconds off your time.
It’s pleasingly vertical too, as all good Hot Wheels tracks should be, but isn’t all about throwing wall after wall at you—instead, it opens with some lovely uprights you can drift at the peak before leveling out for a more focused drive. This just feels like a top-quality, rock-solid track to replay and replay and replay.
Enjoyed these? There are plenty more community tracks to play in Hot Wheels Unleashed, which is available on Epic Games Store.