Racing games are among the most popular in all of mobile gaming. It’s an extremely competitive genre and there are a ton actually good options. Racing games were among the first to take advantage of phone hardware by utilizing the accelerometer as a steering wheel of sorts to steer cars. There are other control methods, but turning the phone is a classic racer component. This is also one of the most varied genres with an excellent selection of both free to play and premium options. Here are the best racing games for Android!
Asphalt 9: Legends and Asphalt Xtreme
Price: Free to play
Asphalt 9: Legends is the latest racing game from Gameloft and the latest in the popular Asphalt franchise. It features excellent graphics, solid mechanics, and a metric ton of content to play through. That includes over 800 events, weekly and monthly events, and online PvP action. You also get up to 50 cars to unlock, various upgrades, and more. Its freemium strategy is a little more aggressive than we would normally like. However, aside from that, it’s a good arcade racing title. Asphalt 8: Airborne is still actively updated as well if you want a more mature title. Additionally, Asphalt Xtreme is another excellent arcade racer in the franchise, but with off-road vehicles.
Beach Buggy Racing 2
Price: Free to play
Beach Buggy Racing 2 is very similar to games like Mario Kart. It’s a kart racer with various special abilities to give you an edge. Players race across a variety of tracks in a variety of locations, each with its own obstacles. The game includes 45 power-ups, over 40 karts to collect, online PvP, various customizations, and a few different game modes. We do wish it had some tertiary features like offline play and Google Play Games achievements. After all, this is a Vector Unit game, the same developers of the Riptide GP series. The Riptide series has those kinds of features. Otherwise, it’s a good game.
CSR Racing 2
Price: Free to play
The CSR Racing series is one of the most popular racing games out there. CSR Racing 2 is a drag racing game. You’ll be buying cars, adding upgrades, and then racing. It features a campaign mode with plenty of races. You’ll also be able to do online racing against people if you want. There are plenty of cars to collect and the graphics are actually pretty good. It’s a good time killer in the racing genre. CSR Racing 2 is a freemium game. That doesn’t make it bad, but it’s something to be aware of.
Dirt Trackin’ 2
Price: $3.99
Dirt Trackin’ 2 is the sequel to one of the more excellent racing games on mobile. The sequel is also quite good. The game features five classes of cards, a career mode, customizable cards, and a few different control schemes. Additionally, it boasts above average mechanics, varying difficulties, and customizable controls for the player along with PvP multiplayer. Admittedly, the graphics aren’t the best compared to most games on this list, but they are better than the first game in the series. However, the level of customization and the content itself more than makes up for it. This is a cheap premium racer with no in-app purchases or ads.
Grand Prix Story
Price: $4.99
Grand Prix Story is a racing sim from Kairosoft. The developers are really good at making quirky, simple simulation games with decent mechanics. You’ll be the boss of your own team. That puts you in charge of training drivers, acquiring sponsors, and winning as many races as possible. It’s a good approach for those who like racing, but prefer a more hands off approach. Those looking for a realistic experience may be disappointed. However, it’s still not a bad game. It’s also a pay-once game with no in-app purchases.
GRID Autosport
Price: $9.99
GRID Autosport is a port of the PC version. It was also one of the best games launched in all of 2019. The game boasts 100 cars along with 100 total races. The game is focused on a single player experience and you not only get adjustable difficulties, but a variety of racing styles and little niceties like hardware controller support. This is one of the easiest recommendations on the list because it feels so complete. The price tag is a bit high, but you get the full PC game along with all of the DLC for that one price so it’s hard to complain too much. This is one of the good ones, trust us.
Hill Climb Racing 2
Price: Free to play
Hill Climb Racing 2 is one of the newer racing games on Android. It features a simple premise, colorful graphics, and simple controls. You’ll be racing up and down hills against opponents. It sounds easier than it actually is. Players can also customize their vehicles, tune them to behave a certain way, and more. The game includes a campaign, an online multiplayer mode, achievements, daily tasks, and challenges. It also works pretty well on older devices. It’s a freemium game. That’s not a big deal, but we just wanted to let you know. This is also available as an offline racing game as well.
Horizon Chase
Price: Free / $2.99
Horizon Chase was one of the best racing games of 2015. It features retro-inspired graphics, There is also a lot to do. It features dozens of tracks, a variety of cars to unlock, and more. What makes this game unique is that it has complete Android TV support, NVIDIA Shield TV support, and you can use most game controllers with it. There is also an online multiplayer mode and leaderboards to round out the experience. The free version is a demo that lets you try out a few of the tracks for free. The paid version is a scant $2.99. The developers are still adding new events as well and we couldn’t be happier. Yes, you can play this racing game offline as well.
Mario Kart Tour
Price: Free to play
Mario Kart Tour briefly held the record as the most successful mobile game launch in history until Call of Duty: Mobile came around a few weeks later. The mobile version of the game is a bit watered down from the console experience, but there’s enough there to feel like a Mario Kart game rather than just another mobile racer. You can unlock a variety of racers from the Mushroom Kingdom, compete in a variety of races, and there are a couple of different game modes as well. It should get online multiplayer at some point in 2020 as well. Nintendo needs to tone down the micro-transactions a little bit, but otherwise this is a delightful mobile arcade racer with just enough Mario Kart to feel like a Mario Kart game.
Motorsport Manager Mobile 3
Price: $3.99 with in-app purchases
Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 is one of the newer racing games on mobile. Technically, it’s a racing simulator. However, there are some actual racing mechanics in the game as well. You start with a fictional racing team. You hire employees, upgrade your business, make your car better, and win lots of races and events. It’s a surprisingly comprehensive game. You have to plan every pit stop and train your racers to race better. The graphics aren’t as good as some others on this list. However, as a racing sim, it’s probably among the best from 2018 at the time of this writing. It has the occasional bug and potentially a few balancing issues, but those are very minor complaints. This game is excellent.
Nitro Nation Drag & Drift
Price: Free to play
Nitro Nation Drag & Drift is a newer drag racing game (comparatively speaking) that’s been tearing up the racing games charts. Despite being free with in-app purchases, the developer boast no energy limits, no delivery time for car upgrades, and fewer of those freemium pitfalls we all don’t like. There are a ton of cars to unlock, online multiplayer modes, tons of upgrades, visual customizations, and even car tuning. It’s like CSR Racing and Drag Racing had a baby. It does have a few bugs though, so beware of that.
Real Drift Car Racing
Price: Free / $0.99 / With in-app purchases
Real Drift Car Racing is a game that focuses mostly on drifting. You’ll be racing around corners trying to get an edge against your opponents. It comes with different difficulties based on your skill level. There are also the usual features, including cars to unlock, a campaign mode, various tracks, and tuning options. Unlike most, this one has a free and paid version. The paid version still has in-app purchases, but it’ll get rid of advertising and unlock some additional content. It’s not bad overall.
Real Racing 3
Price: Free to play
Real Racing 3 is among the more realistic racing games on our list which gives some credence to the name of the game. It’s also a favorite among our readership. The game is full of content, including over 100 cars from various manufacturers, various game modes including real time multiplayer, and even the game’s race tracks are digital versions of real race tracks. There are over 2000 total events with varying rules and types of races. This one is fairly old so we wouldn’t blame you for wanting something a little more recent. There is a ton of content to play through with this one, though.
Riptide GP series
Price: $2.99 each
The Riptide GP series is one of the most woefully under-the-radar racing games series out there. It’s a waverunner game where you don a jet ski and race against opponents. Renegade has a campaign mode, online multiplayer mode, and various other little things to make it fun. It even includes local multiplayer mode with up to four players on a single machine (if you have enough controllers). The other two games in the series, Riptide GP 2 is also really good. Vector Unit also does other racing games like Beach Buggy Blitz that is really good. Frankly, Vector Unit’s racing games are the best non-freemium racing games on Android, probably. This is also one of the best offline racing games for Android as well and all three games in the series are playable offline.
Top Speed 2
Price: Free to play
Top Speed 2 is the successor to Top Speed, a racing game that topped over ten million downloads. The second game in the series is actually pretty good as well. The game boasts over 70 unlockable cars, a surprisingly deep tuning mode, a variety of single and multiplayer game modes, leaderboards, various customizations, and more. The graphics are also quite good with plenty of minor details for car fans. The mechanics and game play aren’t too difficult, though, and, like all free to play games, the grind gets more intense over time. The developer, T-Bull, has a rather large selection of racing games and they’re all pretty decent.
If we missed any of the best racing games for Android, tell us about them in the comments!