Disney Speedstorm is a kart racer with a slick, one-button drifting mechanic, a surprising amount of depth, and a bit of complexity. Gameloft’s free-to-play racing game corrals characters from the wider Disney universe, from classics like Mickey and Donald to relative newcomers like Lilo, Stitch, and Mike Wazowski—and many more in between. It equips them with blistering speed, playful weapons, and a deep desire to dash and bump and explode their animated cousins out of contention.

The loop is pretty simple: You race, you win things, and then you upgrade your racers with what you’ve earned. (It gets a little more nuanced later with the addition of crews, for example, but we’re just concentrating on the general flow here first.) You can play solo, online, and with friends. Themed seasons bring new racers, karts, tracks, and more.

In this Disney Speedstorm guide, we’ll teach you the most important skills to learn early, including driving tips and tricks, racer classes, and how to demystify the overlapping upgrade currencies.
 

Learn racing tricks

If you’ve ever played a kart racer before, Disney Speedstorm’s frenetic action and twisting tracks will feel familiar. Developer Gameloft adds a few of its own ideas to the established formula, though—and instead of sussing them out over hours of playing, you can take these tips with you to a first-place finish.

Boosting

There are effectively two speeds in Disney Speedstorm: regular and boost. Regular is what you’ll be doing when you drive around the course. Boost is what you’ll do after you fill up the blue Manual Boost Meter at the center-top of your screen and press the appropriate button. Then you go super fast for a short amount of time. You can also go faster for a briefer period of time when you drive over Boost Pads scattered throughout the track, when you fly off a ramp and press the jump button to do a trick in the air, and also after drifting (which we’ll talk about next).

The more boost you get, the faster you go. The faster you go, the better—because it’s, you know, a race.

Drifting

Drifting—when you turn at a cool angle, and your tires glow and spark and squeal beneath you—is the single most important early-game skill to develop. It may also be the best-feeling part of Disney Speedstorm, made even better by the fact that it’s only a single button-press away.

So why do you want to drift? For several reasons:

• Drifting fills the aforementioned Manual Boost Bar—so the more you boost, the faster you’ll be able to go later.
• Drifting for about 1.5 seconds or more gives you a Drift Boost when you end your drift. Your wheels will glow when you’re charging the Drift Boost and fully glow when it’s ready to use.

Drift and boost

Always be drifting, and always be boosting. We introduced them as separate sections above, but they’re really two sides of the same coin. Drifting leads to boosting, and it’s basically always beneficial. Throughout several hours and dozens of courses, we haven’t figured out a reason to hold off on drifting and boosting.

Learn the secrets

There are a solid number of racetracks in Disney Speedstorm, and the more you race, the more familiar you’ll become with them. What might at first seem repetitive is secretly beneficial, enabling you to learn the game's secrets. Focus on these ones early:

• Dash: We overlooked the Dash mechanic for way too long. Flick your right analog stick at a racer next to you, and you’ll slam into them, knocking them off course and earning yourself a class-based bonus like a shield. (We’ll discuss these bonuses in the next section below.)
• Grind Pipes: You’ll often see blue-white rails. Drive up to them (or jump onto them if you miss the entrance), and you’ll be treated to more speed, a shortcut, and (if you swing back and forth) some fuel for your boost meter.
• Boost Pad Chains: Boost Pads give your kart a temporary speed boost—and if you look carefully, you’ll notice that the developers seem to have placed them on the track so that you can hit a few in a row. Pay attention to their placement, steering to the left and the right to chain them together and gather even more free speed.

Watch the other racers
Unlike some other kart racers, Disney Speedstorm's courses don’t have a ton of shortcuts. But there are some, and the best way to find them is to watch the other racers. Pay attention to when they jump, for example, and you may find that they’re creating their own shortcuts.

Learning your racer classes

There are four classes of racer in Disney Speedstorm. Each feels pretty similar, but they have their own strengths and bonuses. I didn’t truly understand the classes until I made the list below and checked it before each race. It changed the way I drove and made a huge difference in my results.

For example, Donald Duck is a Brawler. He wants to fight—and quack out devastating disses as he does so. Dashing is fighting, and every time Donald dashes his kart into an opponent, he stuns that racer (or rival, as Disney Speedstorm calls them) and fills up some of his Manual Boost Meter.

Brawler

• Stat Bonus: Handling
• Dash Bonus: Stuns rival
• Manual Boost Bonus (i.e. how you fill your Manual Boost Meter): Stunning other racers

Defender

• Stat Bonus: Acceleration and combat
• Dash Bonus: Shield
• Manual Boost Bonus: Racing in another kart's slipstream

Speedster

• Stat Bonus: Top speed
• Dash Bonus: Auto-boost
• Manual Boost Bonus: Extra charge from boost pads

Trickster

• Stat Bonus: Boost
• Dash Bonus: Confuses rival
• Manual Boost Bonus: Drift boosting

Upgrade your racers with Tokens, Coins, and Credits

Upgrading your racers might be the most complicated part of Disney Speedstorm, if only because there are multiple currencies. Here’s what Tokens, Coins and Credits do, how to get them (beyond the in-game store), and what you can purchase with each.

Tokens

• How to earn: Starter Circuit races, Ranked Multiplayer races, Collection Level increases
• What to purchase: Racer Shards, Cosmetics, Upgrade Parts, Golden Pass tiers, Golden Pass, Season Boxes

Season Coins

• How to earn: Season Tour races, Limited Event races, Golden Pass tier rewards
• What to purchase: Racer Shards, Crew Shards, Upgrade Parts, Universal Box, Cosmetics

Multiplayer Coins

• How to earn: Ranked Multiplayer races, Leaderboard Limited Event rewards
• What to purchase: Cosmetics, Multiplayer Box

Season Box Credits

• How to earn: Season Tour races, Golden Pass tiers
• What to purchase: Season Box

Universal Box Credits

• How to earn: Collection Level increases
• What to purchase: Universal Box

You can pick up Disney Speedstorm now—for free—on the Epic Games Store.