The game’s changelog

What’s
new?

178 updates in 23 days, since October 4, 2026. The same ones as in the game, under the hall’s logo: every change you can see, hear or feel on the track.

On video

October 19, 2026
The House: jump over the bathtub
October 19, 2026
The House: the bath, the den, the foam
October 19, 2026
Pots and parcels: every piece flies apart
October 15, 2026
Online with two on one screen
October 14, 2026
Five new levels, and their Campaign
October 11, 2026
New course: Maplewood by Night
October 7, 2026
Maplewood at 5 p.m., under real clouds

October 26, 20264 updates
1. Graphics
  Top-down view: your car outlined
  In the Plunge and Sky cameras, your car no longer glows when nothing hides it. Drive under a shelf or into a tunnel: a sharp outline in your colour and fine hatching draw it through the decor. And a very rare frozen screen that could happen at the Corner Shop or the Museum is fixed.
2. Online
  Servers get their poster
  Opening a server now means making its poster: it draws itself next to the form with every letter, with its sticker, its schedule in thumbnails and its pinned message, then a recap before opening. The board puts one server « Featured », every card shows the race on, the seats and the language, and can be sorted. The lobby and the page to share use the same poster.
3. Online
  Every level online
  The Garage Club, the Attic, the Corner Shop, the Fun Fair, the Toy Museum and the Lagoon can now be raced online, like Maplewood or the House. Each has its parcels to deliver on the way, its rows of bolts sown on the scary lines, and its nooks where the week's golden parcel may hide from next week on.
4. Game
  Report a bug in one click
  A little bug waits in the bottom-left corner of the screen, on PC and on your phone: tap it and write what's wrong. A picture of the screen and where you are go with your report, and the team reads it before getting it fixed. Mid-race on a phone, pause first: it waits for you there.
October 25, 202613 updates
1. Courses
  The House: clear stairs
  The yellow wheels screwed along the House stairs are gone: they spun without pushing anything any more. The planks are clear from wall to wall. And in the Museum, every label now has its own little brass lamp.
2. Courses
  The Museum: 38 display cases, all different
  The Museum display cases now show one piece from every level, from Maplewood to the Roller Coaster, each with its label. No more cases stuck in the orange ramp or sunk into the moon. The Museum models got their real materials, and the ferns, the rocking horse and the dig-pit bones can finally be pushed around.
3. Courses
  The Lagoon: coconuts that roll
  The border coconuts are spaced out: the one you hit rolls off ahead of you along the sand, the others tip over where they lie, instead of all flying up together. And in split screen, player 2 finally gets their own « 3, 2, 1, go! ».
4. Courses
  The House: drive under the toy chest's plank
  In the bedroom, the plank resting on the toy chest's books no longer hides an invisible wall: where it is high enough, you drive right under it.
5. Game
  Cars climb slopes without struggling
  They are electric cars: uphill, the motor now holds the slope. The House's stairs are climbed at full speed with no conveyor, the truck no longer stalls, and the Backyard's sloping paths are taken in one go. Nothing changes on the flat, downhill or on the kickers.
6. Courses
  The House: laundry, cereal and real labels
  The clothes on the floor crease, wrap round your wheels and get dragged behind you. The spilt cereal box overflows with real rings you send flying, the cans, water and cartons have their labels, and you can finally drive under the tea tray, the chair's plank and the chopping board. The doormat and the blue lid are driven onto, and Sky view no longer shows the windows' pictures.
7. Courses
  The Backyard: bursting tomatoes, real kickers
  In the vegetable patch, the tomato plants and lettuces bend under your wheels and spring back, and the tomatoes burst into slippery juice. The log rounds split into real pieces that roll, the wall kicker is made of planks, the shower's duckboard can be driven on, the flip-flops get pushed and the piñata's gallows is solid.
8. Courses
  The Lagoon: a castle of real sand
  The castle is made of the beach's sand: charge into it and each wall collapses into flowing sand and crumbling clods, then a heap you dig your ruts into. The water park's beach balls float and fly off when you hit them, the towels are on dry sand and crease under your wheels, and the tyre tracks finally follow the beach's slope.
9. Game
  Two players: player 2 earns in Solo too
  In split screen, player 2 finally gets their full end-of-race summary. Linked to their account with their QR code, they now earn their driver and car XP in Solo; without an account, they see what they would have earned. Hit callouts say their name, and the big drift comes twice as fast.
10. Cars
  The Firecracker 07 gets a makeover
  The starter buggy has a brand-new model: a crisper red shell with yellow flames, big pin-spike tyres on yellow rims, gold shocks, a smooth rear wing and a red-tipped antenna, the first thing to fly off when it gets rough. It rolls on its new model's own wheels: it slides more through the bends and its tail steps out at the limit, even on tuned tyres or Gooey Grip. Its top speed and acceleration don't change.
11. Graphics
  The House: the fridge and sockets redone
  The fifties fridge finally turns its doors to the kitchen: varnished cream enamel, seals, chrome handles, badge and grille. The sockets are real French ones, with their wells, holes and earth pin, and the switches have their rockers. At the Fun Fair, the string of bulbs no longer crosses the spirals.
12. Online
  Dedicated servers are here
  At the museum's arcade cabinet, a new board: Servers. Open your own in a few screens (a name, a programme of tracks and neighbours' circuits, your rules, your door): it runs by itself, race after race, whether you're there or not. Name your stewards, take a driver out with the claw, run a championship with its podium, announce your evenings to your favourites. Arriving mid-race? Watch it and take the next start. A server with no race for two weeks stops.
13. Courses
  The Fair: the Miniature Roller Coaster
  At the foot of the big slide, a rift in space-time sucks you in and shrinks you in mid-air: you're tiny now, on the miniature roller coaster standing right beside it, the fair turned giant around you. The chain hauls you up (and tops up your nitro a little), then the big drop throws you into the loop, the broken track to jump, the duel between the red lane and the blue lane with its corkscrew, the zero-g roll, the tunnel and the helix. Like a real coaster, the slope slows you on the way up and flings you on the way down, and only your speed holds you in the loop: too slow at the top and you fall, then get launched again from its foot. Glowing boosters catapult you at the right spots: over the top, at the loop's foot and up its climb, on the lip of the broken track, before the rolls, up the helix. “Lane Jump!” and “In Orbit!” pay nitro. You come out through the back of the rift, full size again, and the race goes on.
October 24, 20267 updates
1. Courses
  The House's dominoes really topple
  The House's lines of dominoes are now real dominoes: knock the first and each one tips onto the next, all the way to the end of the line, and every domino that falls pays you nitro. A long line can earn you « Bulldozer! ». There are fewer of them but in longer lines, in the living room as upstairs. And in the Attic, far fewer stacks of books: only small runs in the bends.
2. Courses
  A border to smash through in every level
  Like Maplewood's picket fences, every level now has its own row to smash along the track, and each section pays you nitro: dominoes in the House (the whole line topples in a cascade ahead of you), log edging in the Garden, snack-bar cups at the Bowling, velvet ropes in the Museum, stacks of books in the Attic (the pages fly off), bunting and popcorn at the Fair, coconuts at the Lagoon, tyre stacks at the Garage Club. At the Corner Shop, ram the shelves: every pack of products that falls pays you nitro. What you break stays broken till the end of the race. And at 20 smashes in a row it's « Bulldozer! »: a quarter of a gauge at once, with a ×N counter by the speedometer and a sound that climbs with each smash.
3. Courses
  The House: the loo roll rolls and unwinds
  Push the bathroom's loo roll: it really rolls, leaves its paper behind it and gets thinner as it unwinds, down to the cardboard tube.
4. Courses
  The Backyard: the flamingo really floats
  The pool's inflatable flamingo is no longer scenery you drive through: ram it and it skims across the water, spinning, drive onto it and it dips a little before bobbing back up.
5. Graphics
  The House: a walnut TV cabinet
  The living room's TV cabinet has its real material: a figured walnut veneer under a satin varnish, each strip of wood its own tone, the doors a shade darker than the case. Have a close look as you drive past the TV.
6. Game
  Smashing pays double, the gauge goes wild
  Whatever you smash pays twice the nitro: 18 % a picket fence, 40 % a garden gnome, 24 % crates and parcels, and the « Carnage! » bonus doubles too. Jumps and tricks give a little less. And no more small « +3 % » on screen: your nitro gauge goes wild, it leaps, a flash runs along it and sparks fly off it, the stronger the bigger the gain. On phones, the nitro button lights up.
7. Graphics
  Maplewood's living room and the hall redone
  The living room you cross on Maplewood's shortcut is furnished for real: a velvet sofa, a walnut coffee table, a bookcase full of books, a TV switched on, a floor lamp, paintings, waxed parquet and damask wallpaper. And the museum hall, in the menu, has new materials: varnished oak parquet, walnut panelling, a felt leaderboard with its lamp, a lacquered podium with brass numbers.
October 23, 202612 updates
1. Game
  Held nitro fires again as soon as you earn some
  Your nitro gauge runs dry while you keep the button down? No need to let go any more: as soon as you earn nitro back (a smash, a trick, a drift), it fires again on its own.
2. Courses
  The House: a real bin, a real football
  The kitchen bin is remade: brushed steel, a domed lid, a chrome pedal and a bin bag folded over its rim, its yellow recycling bag behind it. The ball in the bedroom, by the guitar, is a real football that bounces and flies off when you hit it. And you can finally drive under the bath's plank, over the bath mat.
3. Courses
  The House: toy train, laundry and loo roll
  The bedroom's toy train really runs: it keeps to the race clock, shoves cars that linger on its track, and you bump over its rails. Clothes on the floor crease and drag under your wheels, the loo roll unwinds when you hit it, and the kitchen's cereal boxes have their own printed brands. You can finally drive under the atlas, the bed's plank and the train set's arch, the curtains no longer poke through the window and the stair wall is dressed all the way up.
4. Graphics
  Sky view now sees through the scenery
  In Sky and Dive views, whatever comes between the camera and your car fades away softly, and your car keeps a yellow outline when something hides it. The ground no longer shimmers in the distance on Maplewood's big roads, leaf piles fly up when you drive through them before settling back, and in split screen player 2 finally gets their own off-course and wrong-way banners.
5. Game
  Flung objects smash things
  An object you send flying at full speed breaks whatever it hits, and the shards bounce off cars for the rest of the race. In the Museum, the broom and the vacuum can be pushed, the orange track has its proper moulded plastic and the wall lamps no longer sit on the frames. In the Lagoon, the sandcastle crumbles section by section when you charge into it, wet sand slides more and your wheels sink into the dunes; the rocks, the zip line station and the palms are solid and the driftwood is remade. In the Backyard, the shed door is remade and the vegetable patch no longer smudges the track line.
6. Courses
  The Lagoon opens to every driver
  The tropical level is yours, in Solo and time trial: the beach bar and its piers, the sandbank, the tide rising every lap, water you cross skipping like a stone, the inflatable fruit water park, the blowhole that throws you skyward, the zip line, the glass tunnel at the bottom of the lagoon and the sandcastle. A squall blows over on the second lap, the rainbow comes out on the third. Fly through the lei above the blowhole for an “ALOHA!”. Not online yet.
7. Graphics
  Dust, ruts and clods in the sand
  On the Lagoon's sand, the dirt of Maplewood's park, the Backyard's trails, the Fair's sawdust and the gravel, your wheels now kick up a real plume of dust: it hangs behind you for seconds, drifts, spreads, catches the sun and casts its shadow on the ground, thicker when you slide. The ruts stay for the whole race, with the tyres' tread pressed in, and dig deeper lap after lap where everyone drives. Slide or land a jump and clods of sand fly. Gorgeous in Sky view! On Medium graphics and above; the phones' Low profile is unchanged.
8. Courses
  The Fair: a lit-up Ferris wheel, a living ribbon
  The Ferris wheel is remade: riveted girders, painted gondolas and 656 bulbs chasing round. The hay bales are real straw, the spilt candy floss melts into a sugar puddle, and the ticket roll by the booth flutters in the wind and gets dragged along by cars. The fallen coconut rolls, the giraffe and the coffin are solid, the palace has no invisible wall and nothing flickers any more.
9. Courses
  Maplewood: true house walls, heavy basketball
  Maplewood's houses stop your car where you see them, no more invisible walls before the porches. The basketball is truly heavy: it slows you down, bounces hard and rolls without sliding. The picket fences give three times the nitro. The picnic tables and the keeper's garage finally have their real materials, and the keeper's backyard table no longer pokes out of the wall. In the Backyard you can drive under the trampoline; in the Bowling alley, the door is remade. And everywhere, dozens of surfaces that flickered against each other (walls, floors, furniture, pavements) are separated for good.
10. Courses
  The Museum: lit walls, cows to topple
  In the Toy Museum, the wall lamps finally light the walls: no more black rooms. The model farm's cows topple over, the bucket and mop get knocked about, the lost-property box can be pushed and its treasures spill out. Cars no longer sink into the dollhouse floor, the model's item capsules sit on the table, the ends of the orange track's rails are closed and the display cases no longer flicker. In the menu, the Workshop now sits right under the Garage, and the TV now plays the levels' videos.
11. Courses
  Maplewood: fences to smash, real balls
  Along the park's paths, little white picket fences burst apart as you drive through and give you nitro: on nitro you string them together, without it they slow you down. The beach balls make way for basketballs, heavy and bouncy, and footballs that roll far. The gnomes are gone (Mr Miller keeps his). The park keeper's garage is remade top to bottom (workbench, shelves, fridge, strip lights), the dome is a real energy bubble, the speed radar's screen no longer flickers, and the living-room shortcut no longer counts if you cut across the lawn.
12. Game
  Two cameras from above: Overhead and Sky
  Two new views on the Camera key. “Overhead”, halfway up above your car; then “Sky view”, higher still. The world never turns: your car is the one that turns, slides and spins doughnuts in the frame, followed smoothly, the camera a little ahead of where you are going. You see the bends, the rivals and the shortcuts coming. In the House, the Corner Shop, the Bowling, the Attic, the Museum, the Garage Club and under the Fair’s bumper-car roof, the ceilings melt away above you, like a dollhouse.
October 21, 202614 updates
1. Courses
  The Backyard, a second finishing pass
  The dry-stone walls have real stones, with lichen, moss and ivy; some thirty objects finally have proper materials. The robot mower is remade and its wheels turn, the shed has its siding, its shingles and a workshop full of tools, the picnic table is real wood, the kite flutters in the wind. The giant courgette and the solar lamps get pushed about, you can drive onto the shower's duckboard and under the slide, the path's gravel blends into the lawn and the gnome no longer floats.
2. Courses
  The Corner Shop: smash the stockroom
  In the stockroom, the stacks of boxes collapse into flying parcels (worth some nitro), the recycling bins burst and the tape rolls get shoved about. The floor scrubber is remade, its wheels finally turn. The lorry at the dock no longer traps anyone, the crate on the dock is a real kicker, and the dock's stripes and the bar under the shop window no longer flicker.
3. Courses
  The Corner Shop: hit a shelf, it all falls
  Crash into a shelf in the Corner Shop: everything stocked around the impact really comes down, the top shelves last, and stays in the aisle, in the way of whoever is behind you. The harder you hit, the wider the stretch that falls. And the products wear real labels all the way round: cans, jars, bottles, jugs.
4. Graphics
  Mud no longer sticks all race long
  Sand, dirt, mud: your car still gets dirty driving through them, but the dirt no longer stays until the end of the race. Once you're out, it holds a few seconds then wears off, in about ten seconds.
5. Graphics
  The Corner Shop: real products on its shelves
  The Corner Shop's shelves are no longer printed blocks: cans are round with their tin lids, stacked two high; jars have their lids, bottles their necks and caps, detergent jugs their shoulders, juice cartons their pointed tops, and the bags of crisps and pasta are puffed up. Over a thousand products, each in its own shape.
6. Courses
  The Fun Fair, four touch-ups
  The course's LED strips stay lit around your car, wherever you are. The little ridges between the big slide's lanes are solid: your car bumps over them instead of going through. The midway's tarmac now blends into the field's earth instead of stopping dead. And no more slipping under the rolling barrel through the corners of its mouth.
7. Courses
  The Attic: a real game of skittles
  The Attic's skittles become a real mini-game: each pass counts the skittles you knock down ("7 skittles!"), and that message stays on screen even while you fly. Behind them, an old school blackboard leaning on a carton keeps the scores in chalk, lap by lap: X for a strike, / for a spare. Aim for the pocket!
8. Graphics
  The Attic: gentler LED strips
  In the dim Attic, the LED strips marking the course were dazzling. They now glow softer: you still see where to go, without being blinded.
9. Arsenal
  Helium balloons: higher, and you steer
  In Maplewood, the helium balloons carry your car much harder and longer: your jumps last nearly twice as long. In the air, hit the nitro to climb higher in a trail of sparkles, and steer to guide your flight. And the bunch no longer jumps onto your car: you snatch it as you pass, it swings on its strings, trailing back when you speed and swinging ahead when you brake.
10. Game
  Sliding over the finish
  Past the line, your car no longer stops dead: it brakes and slides sideways, a little differently each time, and keeps sliding as the race ends. The bots too, each its own way: no more pile of cars after the line.
11. Game
  Kickers without an invisible wall
  Taken very fast, a kicker sometimes stopped the car dead against an invisible wall halfway up its slope. Not any more: every kicker is now one smooth piece, and the faster you come, the further you fly.
12. Graphics
  The dome and the ghosts in full view
  With supersampling anti-aliasing (SSAA), the dome went missing in places: the road was drawn over it, and the motion blur wiped it out on the move. The ghost cars too. Now the dome and the ghosts stay whole and sharp, whatever the ground under them.
13. Courses
  Maplewood: the big corner walled off
  In Maplewood, the big corner was quicker than the shortcut through the living room. Not any more: a wall of big cones blocks the road where the bend begins, and three narrow planks leaning askew on it fly you over: barely wider than a car, aim well! A picket fence now runs round the whole corner, so no more cutting across the lawn. Or take the living room!
14. Courses
  The Attic: the hanging baseball
  In the Attic, in front of the skittles, a big baseball hangs from the rafters on its rope. Take the little kicker just before it and ram it: the ball swings away and mows the skittles down. Go for the strike! And a fallen skittle stays solid: you push it, you no longer drive through it.
October 20, 202624 updates
1. Game
  Free Roam for two: map, gnomes and Reset
  In Free Roam for two on the same screen, three things were off, and they’re fixed. Reset puts you back on the track where you were, not at the very start of the circuit. Player 2 gets their minimap back: their dot, and player 1’s (player 1 now sees player 2’s too). And garden gnomes, crates, piggy banks and everything breakable fly to pieces again when you drive into them, just like in Free Roam alone.
2. Courses
  The Attic: the block tower, block by block
  In the Attic, the wooden block tower by the hatch no longer goes in one piece: each block falls its own way. You can also drive under the trunk's big board without hitting an invisible wall, and the old rug in the train's corner no longer flickers.
3. Courses
  The Mini-Mart: bottles everywhere
  In the Mini-Mart's stockroom, the pallet of drinks now carries 96 real bottles (water, orange, cola, lemon), each on its own. A crate on its side in front of it makes a kicker: jump into them and they fly everywhere, rolling and bouncing.
4. Courses
  The Mini-Mart: the delivery schedule
  In the Mini-Mart's stockroom, on the dock's wall, a big whiteboard keeps the week's delivery schedule: bread at 5 am, drinks, fresh food, the papers, an URGENT circled in red, sticky notes and two delivery slips held by magnets.
5. Graphics
  The museum TV: new pictures
  In the museum, when you pick your course, the TV now shows a real poster of each level: the Garage Club, Maplewood by day and by night, the House, the Garden, the Bowling alley, the Museum, the Attic, the Mini-Mart, the Funfair… Each time the place you know, in the thick of a race.
6. Arsenal
  The Attic: capsules you can grab
  In the Attic, the row of capsules that sat up the big plank, where everyone flew over it, has moved down just before its foot: on the boards, at full speed, you grab one before taking off.
7. Courses
  The Mini-Mart: the toilet paper tower
  In the Mini-Mart, the tower in aisle 1 is redone: packs of sixteen bright white rolls, cardboard cores on top, each tied with its colored band. Ram it and it comes down pack by pack, and two rolls are already loose at its foot.
8. Cars
  Your custom body, on the recap too
  After the race, your car's card now shows the body you were wearing, with its box photo, instead of the stock car.
9. Courses
  The Attic: trunk, seesaw and magazines
  In the Attic, no more invisible wall under the trunk's board or under the seesaw's raised end: you drive under them, or up them. The stacks of tied magazines under the roof are redone, fanned out, and they are solid: you climb them instead of driving through them.
10. Courses
  The Attic: the wardrobe, no invisible wall
  In the Attic, the shortcut through the wardrobe no longer hides an invisible wall: you come out through its broken back across the whole width of the hole. The board up into the wardrobe now rests on a real wooden block you can see instead of bumping into. And the puddle of milk under the high chair is gone.
11. Courses
  Corner Shop: the strip curtains swing
  At the Corner Shop, the stockroom’s strip curtains finally react: each PVC strip swings aside as you go through, then sways and falls back. Their middle posts stop you instead of letting you drive through. And the frozen aisle’s ice no longer ends in a hard line on the tiles: its edge frays into frost.
12. Courses
  The Attic: no more invisible walls
  In the Attic, you can finally go where you see room: under the trunk’s lid by the eaves and under the high end of the fallen planks in the wool, which hid invisible walls. The other way round, the roll of tape now stops you, remade as real glossy brown tape, and the tin station’s platform has sloping edges to drive up instead of through. The cast-iron radiator got properly round columns and a real lacquer.
13. Cars
  Body shop: your picture as a model
  At the body shop, you can join a reference picture to your description: a photo, a drawing, a pattern you love. For a paint job, its colours and patterns inspire the new livery while your car keeps its shape; for a new body shell, its shape and colours inspire the bodywork. Your words are still there to say exactly what you want.
14. Courses
  Corner Shop: a real can pyramid
  At the Corner Shop, the can pyramid on the hairpin now falls can by can: clip a corner and only a few cans roll away, charge through the middle and the whole stack comes down in a clatter of tin. It’s no longer one block that fell whole at the slightest touch, and it stands again when you restart the race.
15. Courses
  The Attic: straw, skittles, mothballs, nails
  In the Attic, the crib in the Christmas corner has a real bed of straw: hundreds of golden strands, a gently sloping edge, and you can drive up onto it instead of sinking in. The wardrobe’s mothballs roll ahead of your wheels when you bump them. The skittles now wait right in the middle of the corner before the canyon. And the fallen planks out of the wool finally have their nail to hop over, without ever stopping you from climbing back up.
16. Courses
  The Attic: your car rides on the wool
  In the Attic, the pink glass wool used to swallow cars that fell off the boards: it was drawn well above the floor the wheels roll on, so your car seemed to sink right through it, up to its roof. It now sits at tyre height: you see your car drive on it, wheels and all, until you climb back up a fallen plank.
17. Courses
  Fun Fair: bumper cars come alive, new carousel
  At the Fun Fair, the bumper cars come alive: every 30 seconds the bell rings, the power crackles along the ceiling grid and the six cars drive themselves, bumping into each other on either side of the track, until the power cuts. The fair’s carousel has new horses: carved wooden horses at the gallop, in four painted coats, with saddles and gold trim, and its centre post has its mirrors. The duck pond finally has real water: a dozen ducks float round with the current, and they jump if you knock the basin. And the balloon wall’s sign shows the driver who’s popped the most since the start, with their total.
18. Courses
  The Backyard gets a big polish
  The Backyard got a big polish pass. The grass no longer vanishes under your wheels at the top of the yard, and the piñata floating in front of the swings is gone: the only one now hangs from a proper party gallows over the trampoline. The fences are real wooden fences, about twenty objects were remade (the cat, the dog and its kennel, the barbecue, the flowers, the vegetable patch…) and the lawns came to life: a sandbox, a washing line, garden chairs, a bench, a birdbath, a scarecrow, pumpkins and lettuces. Our house has French doors onto the deck, and the yard has its own sounds: birds, the pool lapping, the neighbors’ kids in the distance.
19. Courses
  The Attic: a golden star, working kickers
  In the Attic, the tree’s star over the big jump is now golden: it shines, glints, and bursts into Christmas sparks when you fly through it. The jump no longer holds your hand: aiming for the star is up to you. The seesaw’s plank and a board laid up the trunk’s lid make real kickers, the beam over the insulation finally shows (along with the whole roof frame), a checkered finish line crosses the canyon, and the nails sticking out of the planks make you hop.
20. Courses
  The House: jump the bathtub on nitro
  The jump over the bathtub was too easy: everyone took it and nobody went round any more. Now the kid’s plank only gets you over on nitro: hold it on the way up (it’s written on the plank, and your nitro key flashes) and you fly over the tub. Without nitro, splash: you drop into the bath, the swimming float is gone, your car sinks and you start again from the foot of the plank, the long way round. The bots only jump when they have nitro to burn. And the overflowing water now falls all the way to the tiles, with no more tiles floating in the air.
21. Account
  Play as a guest, no account needed
  No need to make an account to race any more: on the account screen, “Play as a guest” takes you to the garage in one click, with a name like Driver-4821. Your game is kept on our servers like everyone’s: levels, cars, bolts, crates, records. Whenever you like, the yellow “Save” button at the top puts it on your account (your email, or Google): you keep everything and pick your real name. Friends, the talkie, the Atelier and the body shop open once your game is saved.
22. Game
  Campaign: every kid races their own car
  In the Campaign, the seven kids no longer draw their car at random: each one always races their own, the one on their sticker, in every race and at every difficulty. Mika in the Stiletto 01, Bolt in the Rumble 10, Juno in the Paloma 64, Kiko in the Sandstorm 5, Nova in the Kitsune 86, Tess in the Glowplug 21, Rex in the Jetstream 58: you always know who’s ahead of you. Take a kid’s car and they’re the one who switches. The grids get a little tougher: Tess and Mika never let go of their speedsters.
23. Courses
  The Workshop: build your own tracks
  In the museum, the Workshop is now open to everyone. At the tracks bench, start from a blank page with land of your own (small, medium, large or custom), from a template in the streets of Maplewood, or from the setting of one of the game’s levels, like the House or the Bowling alley. Draw your road in one stroke, sculpt the terrain, paint the ground (sand, dirt, rock, mud…), build walls and platforms, place ramps, pickups and things to knock over, then try it right away. Your tracks show up on the museum TV, and from driver level 5, publish them so others can race them and give them hearts.
24. Cars
  Body shop: repaint your car
  In the museum’s Workshop, the car bench now offers a fresh coat of paint. Pick a car from your garage, describe the livery you want (colors, patterns, logos), and the workshop draws it, then paints it onto the car’s shape before your eyes. About ten minutes later, its box is waiting for you in the basement: open it and your car wears it, online too. Three paint jobs a day; brand-new bodies will come later.
October 19, 202613 updates
1. Game
  Campaign: rivals shown by their cars
  The Campaign’s seven rivals no longer have faces: each one is shown by their car, in the colors it wears on the track, as a sticker on a racing roundel. You’ll find them everywhere: the album and its cards, the event poster (your car against theirs), the rivals’ board in the museum, the Garage Club stand, the debrief. On the poster of a race with a full grid, each driver shows up with the car they drive that day. And the album’s cover now shows their seven cars on the neighborhood track.
2. Graphics
  Pick the 3D resolution on PC
  New in Settings › Graphics, on a computer: Resolution. Pick the 3D image’s height, 720p, 1080p, 1440p or 4K, whatever the size of your window: crisp 4K even in half a window, or 720p for more frames per second on a laptop. The interface stays sharp either way, and Auto keeps the old behaviour, set by your screen.
3. Sound
  The nitro chime goes quiet
  The three little notes that rang out every time you earned nitro kept coming back, above all when you bump into the scenery: they are gone for good. The nitro you earn still shows, and your gauge fills up just as before.
4. Game
  Split screen: each view on its player’s side
  Two at one screen, player 1’s view no longer has to be on the left (or at the top): pick “Player 1’s place” in Settings › Graphics, at the race start or in the garage for two (the I key, X on a pad). The views, the gauges, the map and the debrief move to the other side, even mid-race: each player watches the half in front of them.
5. Courses
  The House: jump over the bathtub
  In The House's bathroom, the bathtub now stands in the middle on a tiled dais: the road goes round it, or you come out of the kid's room with a sharp right onto his plank and fly over it, landing right in the gallery's doorway. The shortcut saves several seconds; short on speed, splash, and his swimming float gets you out. The start line moved back too: the race no longer starts inside the dishwasher's foam.
6. Game
  The clay pots weigh what they should, and clonk
  The terracotta flower pots were far too light: a whole column flew off at the slightest knock. Now they weigh what they should: ram them and only the pots at your car’s height go, the ones above collapse, everything rolls a yard or two, and the stack costs you a little speed. And the stacks can be heard again: the column tipping over, the clonk of each pot coming down, every carton of a pile of parcels.
7. Courses
  The House: the bath, the den, the foam
  In The House, the kid's plank launches you into the bathtub: splash, a spray of water and a bit of nitro, then you wade between the toys and the swimming float sends you back over the rim. Glowing arrows on the floor and a sign show the jump onto the table. The half landing is now the kid's den, with his little train going round, his clock and his fairy lights, and the dishwasher overflows with foam your car ploughs a furrow through. The dog lifts its head as you go by, the robot vacuum does its rounds and the cuckoo sings.
8. Progression
  Driver levels now take five times the XP
  Every driver level now takes five times as much XP. Races pay what they did, but the gauge fills five times slower: each level, with the car, paint or title it opens, means more. You keep your level and your progress: the XP you had already won was multiplied by five too. Car levels don’t change.
9. Sound
  Every level now has its own music
  Every level now plays its own music, from the same family as the game’s theme: a band organ at the Fun Fair, a Hammond organ and rain on the roof in the Attic, a 3 a.m. electric piano at the Corner Shop, neon-lit brass at Strike Lanes… It starts on the loading screen and takes over from the museum’s radio in a smooth crossfade, with no cut. It loops through the race, softens when you pause, and hands back to the radio when you return to the museum. The Music slider (Settings › Sound) sets both.
10. Graphics
  Pots and parcels: every piece flies apart
  The stacks of clay pots and parcels (Maplewood, the Garden, the Fair, the Toy Museum) no longer break as one block: every pot, every carton is its own object, like the blocks of the House’s castle. Ram them and they roll away one by one down the road, without costing you speed if you stay on the throttle; nudge them and a column of pots tips over in one piece, still nested. Each stack still pays its nitro and counts as one thing broken.
11. Game
  Back to the museum, smooth, where you left
  After a race, the museum comes back behind a screen like the Recharge, your car charging up: no more freeze between the standings and the museum. If you started the race from the solo mode’s TV, you land back there, on the track you just raced, ready to go again. And in solo, “See the standings” (Enter, or A on a pad) brings the bots home at once, each at the time it was heading for (marked ≈): no more waiting for them to finish to see their scores.
12. Performance
  Loading twice as fast
  The Recharge, the screen that gets the race ready before the start, prepared every material of the level several times over when only one copy was used. It now prepares only what the race draws: the first race on a level starts about twice as fast, up to four times on Maplewood by Night and at the Garage Club, on computers and phones alike. Later races on the same level stay almost instant.
13. Performance
  No more freeze the first time
  The first time you popped a balloon at the Funfair, the picture froze for almost a second: the game was getting the confetti ready right then. It now does it during the Recharge, before the start, as it does for the Corner Shop’s can pyramid, the mirror ball and lasers of the Bowling’s last lap, the ball rolling between the lanes, the Toy Museum’s little train coming up and the steam cars’ puffs. The Funfair’s bots also think three times faster around the rides, driving just the same: the race there runs lighter, on phones most of all.
October 18, 20261 update
1. Cars
  Compare two cars in the garage
  In the garage, and when you choose your car before a race, the new Compare tool (C on a keyboard, LT on a pad) pins the car on show: a REF tape lands on its box in the pyramid. Browse the others: they join the reference on the turntable, side by side at their true size, their bars turn green where they do better and dashed red where they do less, with the difference at the end of each line. Underneath, top speed and nitro peak in km/h, as the race speedometer reads them, settle two cars with equal bars. Tap the “Versus” label, or Stop, to put the comparison away.
October 17, 20265 updates
1. Online
  The talkie: talk to friends and your room
  A walkie-talkie on your driver plate (or the Y key). Friends: write to your friends, even when they’re away, and send them a challenge with your ghost (also from a time trial’s finish), an invitation to your room, one of your circuits, a body from your stall (bought in two taps) or a sticker from your Campaign album, paper, chrome or holo. Room: talk with the drivers of your online room, before and after the race. Help: write to the team, they answer in the talkie. The loudspeaker brings the team’s announcements, as a banner and a news flash on the museum TV, and warns you before each update. In races, quick words become comic-book bubbles over the cars: five more (Sorry!, Whoa!, Thanks!, Ready!, Who’s in?), your six of choice in Settings › Controls, ↑ on the pad’s cross, a bubble under your thumb; in a private room, “Rematch?” from most drivers starts the race again. No links or phone numbers, swear words masked, and “Mute” silences a driver. The Neighbourhood, one channel per language for all of Voltane, opens to testers first.
2. Courses
  The fair: webs, spider and balloon wall
  In the ghost train, the spider webs are real webs now: the first car through the big one is held a moment and tears it, the giant spider drops down to meet it, then weaves it again. In the next corridors, sticky half webs slow you far more: go round them. The midway’s balloon wall is redone: balloons swinging and bumping on their strings, bursts and confetti, three gold balloons worth three, a confetti cannon for the jackpot. And the lights’ reflections on the wet ground no longer look like streaks.
3. Account
  Your email address, confirmed by a code
  A new account now opens with the 6-digit code sent to its address: type it on the account screen and the garage opens. Nothing came? Ask for another code, or fix the address if it was mistyped. If yours wasn’t confirmed yet, the game asks for it once. With Google, nothing changes.
4. Game
  The minigames take a short break
  The Carousel’s minigames close for a few days: we’re polishing them before they open again for good. Until then, their corner says “Coming soon”. Your bests are kept, and in races and the Campaign, every level keeps its feat.
5. Sound
  You can hear the attic’s ghosts now
  In the Attic, every ghost that comes up through the boards near you lets out a soft, wavering “hooooo”, more spooky-for-fun than scary. One that a car drives through flees with a little whistle, on top of your catch’s sound when it’s yours. You hear them where they float: left, right, ahead or behind, fainter when they’re far off.
October 16, 20268 updates
1. Courses
  The attic's ghosts, redone from top to toe
  In “The attic ghost” and the Mini games' ghost hunt, ghosts now come out all race long, from the start, at seven spots round the lap: out from under the sheets and the boxes, they sway over the track. A real sheet that ripples, eyes that blink, a cold light on the boards and on your car; as you come, it turns to you, raises its arms and shouts “Boo!”. Drive into it before the others: it bursts into wisps. The stars are now 2, 4 and 6 ghosts, and at two, the third one finally counts your ghosts instead of the one-two.
2. Game
  Campaign: ten little bugs squashed
  When loading ends, the event's poster waits for you: read your goals, then “Let's go” (or A, Start, Space, Enter), from any pad. Every level shows its own scenery while loading, no more Maplewood. In a duel at two, a round won is no longer wiped out by pressing A after the line, and the duels where you must knock Bolt out are now two laps a round. At two, Flash clean-up and Knock ’em down ask for what is really within reach, a hunt's recap tells you how long you took to pick everything up, and at the Corner Shop a “DELIVER HERE” sign, arrows on the floor and a “STOP” at the back of a lorry that's finally empty show where to deliver. The Fair's bulbs dazzle less.
3. Game
  The museum's menus, neat on every screen
  After the Campaign and the garage, the whole museum gets the treatment: the TV, the Start, the Carousel, the Shop, the hall and the Online screen fit in full on your screen, from a phone held sideways to a big PC monitor, without shrinking or slipping under the logo. The steps at the top stay on one line, the neighbours' circuit shelves line up, and so do the Shop's buy buttons. Above all, nothing jumps any more: in the Campaign, at the TV and in the garage, the card keeps its size as you go from event to event, channel to channel or car to car, and the arrows and buttons stay where they are.
4. Graphics
  No more shimmer in the bowling alley or far off
  In the bowling alley, the reflections in the lanes' oiled wood jittered in small jerks: they now hold still, sharp even at the far end of the hall. And on every course, what shines far off behind the race's blur no longer flickers: the bowling's ceiling light strip, the fair's strings of bulbs. The blur stays the same from one frame to the next, at no extra cost to your graphics card.
5. Game
  The Campaign and the garage, on every screen
  In the museum, the Campaign's event card has been redone: on a phone, what an event asks and its three stars sit side by side, in full, without shrinking. Each star shows its XP bonus (+50, +75, +125, doubled against a rival), the arrows that go from event to event stay right by their dots, and the camera comes closer to the book so it fills your screen's free room. In the garage, your car's tools (Style, Body, Flea market, Kit, Tuning) get a row of their own: the “Keep it” button no longer runs off the edge.
6. Graphics
  No more flickering objects
  Now and then, objects vanished for a single frame: the vase and cups on The House's dining table, the slippers on the floor, anything your car can push. They now stay put, at no extra cost to your graphics card. In the museum, the showcases' floor no longer flickers between white and brass: every car stands on its golden top.
7. Game
  Living-room football: a real goal, a real ball
  In The House, the two poufs make way for the kid's toy goal, net and all, and the beach ball for a real black-and-white football. Kick it: it flies off faster than you, lifts a little, goes where your bonnet aimed it, and the rug puffs under the blow. In the back of the net, the net bulges, the ball stays there, confetti flies. Hit the post and you'll hear it.
8. Courses
  The House: under the bed, and the balcony plank
  Under the kid's bed, a real striped sock lies flat, its twin rolled into a ball, and the dust bunnies finally look like dust: you can push them all around. On the balcony, the jump's plank rests on a row of books, and you can no longer slip under it from the sides.
October 15, 202614 updates
1. Graphics
  La Maison's bathtub really overflows
  In La Maison's bathroom, the water spills over the rim, falls in a sheet, tears into strands then drops and splashes the tiles in a fine mist. The puddle ripples and mirrors the tub and its golden feet, the faucet runs into the bath, the foam drifts in islands and the toys bob on the water. Drive under the fall: it lands on your roof. And you can hear it.
2. Graphics
  Metal finally shines like the real thing
  The chrome, stainless steel, copper and steel of the scenery no longer look like crumpled foil: clean, bright metal, brushed just enough, with real reflections, that no longer sparkles as you move. Glossy plastics, lacquers and glazed dishes are smooth, and every object wears the right material all over, with no grain borrowed from another. Go see the station wagon's rims in Maplewood, La Maison's dishwasher or the museum's workbench.
3. Game
  Two players: a debrief each
  On a split screen, the end of a race plays out on each half: your place and your time, your rubans, the standings with both your rows in colour, and what you earned, each for yourself, solo or online. In the lobby, the code has its own plate and the link to copy its button, and a single “Garage for two” button opens the garage to pick your cars together.
4. Online
  Online with two on one screen
  Pick “2 players” in the hall, then Online: player 2 takes the controller and a spot of their own on the grid, each with half the screen, against your friends on their phones or PCs. It works in a lobby with friends, in quick and ranked races (a seat kept for both of you). Player 2 can connect their account with the QR code: their name in the race, their XP, bolts and parcels.
5. Game
  Reset: no more 2-second penalty
  Putting your car back on the track (R, a fall, a wreck) no longer costs 2 seconds: the road lost back to the last gate is enough. So the order over the line makes the places, everywhere: solo, at two, online. No more crossing first only to end up second when the next car comes home right behind.
6. Game
  Campaign: every timed star counts down
  On the stars card, whatever is played against the clock now counts its seconds down: each medal’s time on your lap, a hunt’s last star, Tess’s ghost, the License tests. Amber under 10 s, red under 5 s; once the time is gone, the star is struck through with the seconds over. On a time trial of several laps or at the License, it comes back on the next lap or attempt.
7. Game
  Campaign: all three stars in sight
  During a Campaign event, a card in the top right shows its three stars and where you stand on each: your place, your best lap against the medal time, the duel’s score, the smashes or tokens with their bar. Green is what you hold so far, gold what is won, red what is missed, and a padlock on those that depend on it. At two, each player has their own in their half; on a phone, it sits under your place.
8. Game
  Campaign hunts: real objects, harder
  In the Campaign’s hunts, no more beams of light or rings: the objects lie on the floor, for real — cans on special, rolls of tickets, painted eggs, glass marbles, pins, ammonites, rolled newspapers — and you have to drive over them to take them. The map shows where they are; the three-star times of the Garden, the Bowling and the Museum gained 10 s.
9. Account
  Split screen: player 2 signs in with a QR code
  The campaign for two’s “Connect player 2’s account” QR code now works all the way through, Continue with Google included. And the phone no longer loads the game: once scanned (and signed in if need be), it joins on its own and shows whose PC you’re playing on, and as whom. In the race, your pseudo replaces “Player 2” over your car, on La recharge and in the standings (and player 1’s shows in your half). Your stars and XP go to your account: put the phone down, grab the pad.
10. Game
  Split screen: a map for each player
  Two at one screen, player 2 now has their own minimap, their car the ringed dot among the others. The keys no longer sit over your speed: they tuck in at the very bottom, smaller, under the nitro, and each player sees their own, keyboard or pad. As before, they fade away after a few seconds of racing.
11. Game
  Bowling: ride the pipe’s ceiling to the end
  In the Bowling’s pipe, the wall now holds you all the way to its end: nothing brings you back down. At the end you drop, your car rolls back onto its wheels as it falls, and the camera holds still to watch it land. The light trail only comes back once you’re out of the ball return.
12. Game
  Feats now show over every other message
  A feat’s message (a STRIKE, Bullseye, GOAL!, Clocked!…) now shows over every other one, the live flight too, for as long as it lasts: nothing hides it any more. And in the minigames, Reset takes you back to where you started.
13. Game
  Minigames open at the Carousel
  The Carousel’s Minigames quarter is open: each level’s feat played for its own sake, alone on the track and against the clock. The school speed camera, the arena’s target, living-room football, the bowling game, the pit stop, the ghost hunt, the museum heist, the delivery round, the balloon wall and the piñata: each with its score, three medals and your best. Signed in, your run is verified by the server and goes on the leaderboard; each week, one minigame is the challenge with its own weekly board; and two players on one screen get a score each, a winner and the team’s medal.
14. Courses
  A feat to pull off in every level
  After the speed camera, the target and the goal, every level has its feat. At Strike Lanes, the perfect game: a STRIKE on every lap, the score sheet up on the monitors over the lanes. At the Garage Club, the timed pit stop; in the Attic, the ghost leaving its sheet at each flash of lightning; at the Toy Museum, the dollhouse lasers to get past untouched; at the Corner Shop, the delivery into the lorry at the dock; at the Fun Fair, the balloon wall past the strength tester; in the Backyard, the piñata over the trampoline. The bots have a go now and then, and the Campaign has five new events.
October 14, 20265 updates
1. Courses
  Three feats: speed camera, target and goal
  Every level will get its own feat, like the bowling’s strike: here are the first three. In Maplewood, the school’s speed camera flashes the fastest car of the race: beat the record on its sign. In the Stunt Arena, land in the target painted past the small monster (C1): 50, 100 or 250 points. In The House, push the ball between the living room’s two poufs: GOAL! Each feat fills your nitro, scatters bolts online, and the whole race hears of it. And the Corner Shop’s can pyramid is now « Tin can alley! ».
2. Game
  The pad steers your car in the air
  On a pad, the left stick now steers the car in the air, as on a phone: push it up to dip the nose, pull it down to lift it, and set your fall to land flat. With Drift (X), up is a front flip, down a back flip and sideways a barrel roll, even with the throttle trigger held.
3. Game
  Back flips with the throttle held
  In the air, braking or reversing now beats the throttle. Keep the right trigger held, press Drift and the left trigger (or Brake): the car throws a back flip. They used to cancel out, and it hung as it was. On a phone, Drift with the stick pulled down does the same in the air.
4. Courses
  Five new levels, and their Campaign
  Strike Lanes, The Attic, The Corner Shop, The Fun Fair and The Toy Museum are open to everyone: switch on the museum’s TV, channels 08 to 12. Each has its own page in the Campaign album, with eight events on circuits of its own. Strike Lanes also races online: dive into its funnel and ride up to the ceiling of its pipe, glazed onto outer space. The other four are solo for now, and we keep polishing them all.
5. Courses
  The Backyard: objects at their true size
  In the Backyard, the paddling pool, the table and its chairs, the loungers, the cooler, the wheelbarrow and the croquet set were drawn four times too big for what you actually hit: you seemed to drive through them. They now have their true size, the one you bump into.
October 13, 20269 updates
1. Graphics
  On phones, no more black floors in the shade
  On phones, the levels’ soft light faded away wherever the sun does not reach: in the shade outdoors, and whole indoor floors, pitch black. It is back: floors in the shade get their light again, as on a computer.
2. Graphics
  The Backyard: dirt paths
  In the Backyard, the way now shows in the lawn: a trodden dirt path follows it wherever it runs on grass, a few blades poking through, and each Campaign course has its own.
3. Graphics
  The House: the way lights up just ahead
  In The House, the LED strips now only light the few metres ahead of your car, the rest of the way dark: where the way crosses itself, no more doubt about which branch to take. In split screen, each player sees their own stretch.
4. Graphics
  The House: the LED strips never break
  The House’s LED strips no longer stop at a wall or a table leg: they move in where the way narrows, hug the inside of tight bends, and only fade out, softly, at the big jump from upstairs.
5. Graphics
  The House: the way lit with LED strips
  In The House, the kid’s tape gives way to LED strips: cyan on the left, warm white on the right, bright beads and their glow on the floorboards. Chevrons of light shine before every bend, and the strips even cross the living room rug: no more getting lost, on the big loop as on the Campaign’s courses.
6. Courses
  The Backyard pool can’t be driven through
  In the Backyard, the paddling pool is full of water: you bounce off it instead of driving through it, and a hard ram only nudges it. The Campaign courses that had it on their road or their start now set it aside.
7. Game
  Campaign: gates now show the way
  The levels’ campaign courses show their way better: each has its gates, the next one to pass lit up, and their count beside the timer, as in Maplewood. In the Stunt Arena, each course also paints its edges and arrows on the tarmac (the big loop’s fade away): no more getting lost in the double loop of “Air Nitro”.
8. Game
  Player 2 sees their own moves
  On a split screen, player 2’s callouts finally show in their own half: their jumps and airtime, skipping stones, hits, stunts, shortcuts and the nitro each one pays, with their sound and their shake, just like player 1’s.
9. Game
  Campaign: every level gets its own courses
  After Maplewood, every page of the album races its events on courses of its own, inside its level. In the House: the ground floor alone so Dad sleeps on, upstairs and its shortcut under the bed, the stairs up and down, the whole house in one go. In the Backyard: down the slide every lap, the neighbors’ lawn both ways round, the vegetable patch and its jump off the top of the wall, the swan dive for Rex’s duel. In the Stunt Arena: the double loop that crosses itself, the monster kickers, giant kickers from side to side, the wrong way round through a minefield. Passages closed by foam blocks, extra turbo kickers, gates to drive through; every event card shows its course’s plan. The pages of the levels to come already have theirs.
October 12, 20263 updates
1. Graphics
  Sharp cars on a split screen
  Two players on one screen saw every moving car come out blurred, smeared by the motion blur in both halves: the game miscounted how far each one moved from one frame to the next. They are sharp again, as with one player, in Solo as in the Campaign and on every course.
2. Game
  Campaign: a course of its own for each event
  Maplewood is no longer raced ten times on the same lap: every event has its own course. A figure eight across the park, at night, for Bolt’s duel; the little loop round the pond for the elimination; the big loop the wrong way round at golden hour; the school roofs to jump for The big jump; Mr Miller’s gnome avenue; cut-throughs for Juno; the midnight time trial in Maplewood by Night. A new event, the paper round: sixteen porches to serve in two minutes. The album grows: the Backyard page opens once Bolt is beaten (an egg hunt, skipping stones, Kiko and Rex out for revenge), and every event card shows the plan of its course. A duel won for the first time brings its parcel, even against a kid you already beat elsewhere.
3. Game
  Solo for two players, on a split screen
  Pick “2 players” in the hall: Solo now opens for two on the same screen (on computers, player 2 on a gamepad). Solo race, Time Trial and Free Roam go through the two-player garage, then each player gets their half of the screen: a race against six rivals, a time trial duel where the best time wins, or an endless drive. You also choose how the screen splits, side by side or top and bottom: in the two-player garage (O key, Y on a gamepad), at the start or in Settings › Graphics, even mid-race. Two players means no ghost and no record, and each half’s readouts no longer overlap.
October 11, 20265 updates
1. Courses
  New course: Maplewood by Night
  Maplewood now has its night, right after the rain: the orange street lamps stretch across the puddles, the cars’ headlights light up the road ahead of them, windows and porches are lit, the moon and stars shine over the roofs and a low mist hangs over the asphalt (reflections and headlights on every preset but Low). Same streets, same shortcuts and same jumps as by day, with records of its own. Channel 07 on the museum’s TV, right after Maplewood, and online.
2. Courses
  The Backyard: kickers and a trampoline
  The Backyard is a lot more fun: a kicker at the end of the deck sends you flying through the gate, the neighbors’ trampoline now sits at the edge of a long diagonal with a kicker in front (land on the mat and it throws you sky-high), a kicker over the vegetable rows, a crest at the top of the gravel path, another one on the pool’s stone, and a higher lip on the wall for a real jump. Each kicker takes half the way: your call. The robot mower now crosses the diagonal.
3. Graphics
  Sharp wheels, even flat out
  Since the 10 October smoothness pass, every car’s wheels looked blurry, mostly on Ultra and High: the motion blur smeared them into streaks, as if they were going twice as fast as the car. Fixed: the wheels follow their car again, knobs and rims sharp, while the road streaks past behind. And the dust or mud they pick up now turns with the tyre.
4. Graphics
  The Backyard: real wood and travertine
  The Backyard’s surfaces are now photographed: the deck shows pine grain under its boards, the pool is edged with cream travertine flags, and the path up to the top of the yard is real gravel. The overturned wheelbarrow now gets shoved around without dragging along the soil it spilled.
5. Courses
  New course: The Backyard and the Pool
  Three backyards on a Sunday noon in July: start on the wooden deck, cross the neighbors’ lawn under the sprinkler and the muddy vegetable rows, climb the gravel path to the top of the yard and drive through the shed, then leap off the wall above the pool. Two shortcuts: the water slide, which sends you skipping across the water to the beach, and the big bounce, the plank up onto the trampoline. Mind the robot mower doing its rounds, and knock the chairs, loungers, cooler and wheelbarrows about on your way. Channel 06 on the museum’s TV, and online.
October 10, 20263 updates
1. Game
  On phones, a resting thumb accelerates
  On touch screens, no more holding the left stick up: just rest your thumb on it to go flat out, and push it sideways to steer. Slide it a little down to ease off, further down to brake and then reverse. Flying the Jetstream, it still pilots: up to climb, centred to hold your height, down to dive (now possible by touch too).
2. Performance
  Smoother still on Ultra and High
  On Ultra and High, each frame now draws the scene once instead of twice: in Maplewood, the processor does a fifth less work per frame again, the scenery unchanged. Along the way, the motion vectors, stored too coarsely until now, are finally right: the picture stays sharp while you drive, and motion blur follows your speed in every direction (adjust it in Settings › Graphics).
3. Performance
  Smoother Maplewood, even on Ultra
  In Maplewood, the processor does about 12% less work per frame mid-race, with nothing lost on screen: a third fewer objects drawn. The reflections on your car and on the pond no longer redraw the cones, gadgets and small details you couldn’t make out in them, the shadows of everything that moves are cast in one go, a car’s four wheels draw together and the horizon in one piece per material. On a fast PC on Ultra, slow frames get rarer; on a more modest machine, you get more frames per second.
October 9, 20266 updates
1. Game
  Your controller now works in every menu
  Settings, pause, friends, bag, leaderboard, shop, online mode, Style and Tuning in the garage, the account screen: everything now works with a controller. The D-pad or left stick moves from button to button, A confirms, B goes back, LB and RB switch tabs, the right stick scrolls. In the garage, X opens Style and Y Tuning; in the hall, Y opens What’s new? and Start the settings. The View button gives you a free cursor to reach any button on screen, top bar included. In photo mode, the right stick turns around the car and the triggers zoom in and out.
2. Cars
  Jetstream: no more refilling nitro mid-flight
  The Jetstream earned nitro in the air faster than it burned it: from jump to jump, it could fly forever. Flying as a plane, its nitro now burns like any other car’s, and its flights pay half as much: the gauge never refills mid-flight. A full gauge gives about six seconds of flight. On the ground, its nitro still lasts 1.7 times longer.
3. Game
  Campaign: a poster for every event
  While the race loads, the event shows up big: its name, its album page, its rules (rounds, clock, nitro, no honking…), its story in pencil and its three stars, with those you already have. Against a rival it’s a face-off: your car, the “VS”, the kid and their line before the start. Against the clock, the laps to beat; in a race, the seven kids on the grid, their faces and their cars. Once loaded, one press (A, Space) starts the countdown.
4. Game
  The Debrief: a whole new race end
  The end of a race now plays out beat by beat while the camera circles your car: your place or verdict slams in, the stars fly to their slots, the sticker drops into the album, the rival takes a BEATEN stamp. Then come your race’s ribbons (KOs, longest jump, rocket start, shortcuts…), your XP bar climbing, a level won on the whole screen, your car’s battery charging and your parcels shown one by one. One press (A, Space, a click) shows it all at once. In the Campaign, “Next event” takes you straight on. Everywhere: Campaign, online, Carousel and time trial.
5. Game
  Campaign: a wider slalom, the right grid
  In the license test, the slalom’s cones are much farther apart: seven cones instead of nine, half as far again from each other, room to weave at full speed; three stars now take under 8 s. When a Campaign event loaded, the screen first showed eight drivers before correcting itself: it now shows the real grid right away, your rival, their teammate and player 2 under their name. The album reopens at the level and event where you left it. With two players in the hall, Solo and Online say “Soon”: for now, two players means the Campaign.
6. Game
  The rocket start
  During the 3-2-1, hit the throttle at the right moment before “Go!”: your car shoots off in a rocket start, a good second ahead. The right moment is yours to find. Too early and the engine floods, leaving you stuck for a moment. The bots try it too, more often the higher their level, and it works solo, two-player, online and in the Campaign.
October 8, 202610 updates
1. Graphics
  Separate graphics for two players
  Two players on one screen (on computers) means everything is drawn twice: graphics now have a setting of their own. Pick “2 players” in the hall: Settings › Graphics then shows “Graphics for two players”, with Auto (a step below your setting), Low, Medium, High, Ultra or Same as solo. You can also change it in the two-player garage, with a click or G (Select on a gamepad), and from the pause menu in a race.
2. Game
  A Quit button in the hall, on computers
  On computers, the hall now has a Quit button at the very bottom, after the Workshop. Press it once, then again to confirm: the installed game closes, and in a browser you go back to the website. Your progress stays on your account.
3. Game
  Much tougher bots
  The bots won’t let you get away anymore: from Club to Legend, they all follow the real racing line now, each a step behind the next. A Club lap is a quarter faster than before, an Expert lap a sixth, and Legend is quicker on Maplewood, where it no longer flies off the road’s kickers. Chill is still there to learn the courses. Online too, the bots that fill the grid race at this new level.
4. Game
  An interface sized to your screen
  On big computer screens, the menus, the race and the windows now grow on their own, up to twice the size in 4K, so they no longer look tiny. And in Settings › General, “Interface size” lets you make it bigger or smaller to your liking, or go back to Auto.
5. Game
  The loading screen in true colors
  On the loading screen, every car finally shows in its real colors: yours in your paint, the other drivers’ in theirs. Playing as two on one screen, player 2 shows up by name instead of looking like a bot.
6. Game
  Twice the nitro for playing
  Everything you do with the course now pays twice the nitro: every prop smashed, pushed or knocked over (cones too), piggy banks and streaks, every second in the air and every trick, La Maison’s windows, skips across the pond and shortcuts. Drifts, rams, slipstreams and capsules stay the same: go for the kickers and whatever lies by the road.
7. Game
  The Campaign: the neighborhood kids’ album
  At the back of the museum, in the corner past the reserve, a giant pop-up album lies open on its table: five double pages and 41 events, from your license at the Garage Club to the Voltane Cup. Every page has its course printed, paper scenery that stands up as it opens and a flag for each event; your little car drives from one to the next, and the camera dives into the flag to start the race. Back from it, the sticker you won flies to its slot (paper, chrome or holo depending on your stars), the rival you beat falls flat and gets the “BEATEN” stamp on the rivals’ board, then the next page unfolds for the first time. Every event pays XP like an online race as long as it still has a star to give you. Halfway through and at the end of each page, a kid from the neighborhood waits for you in a duel: Juno, Bolt, Kiko, Nova, Tess, Rex, and Mika last of all. On phones and tablets, swipe the card to go from one event to the next; on a gamepad, left and right change events, LB and RB change levels, and up and down scroll the card. And on computers, you can play it as two on one screen: pick “2 players” in the hall, each of you takes a car in the two-player garage (player 1 in blue, player 2 in red), and player 2 scans a QR code to earn their stars on their own account.
8. Courses
  The Garage Club is back: the block’s RC club
  The Garage Club is back as a real RC club in a big basement garage: a carpet track between red and white foam barriers, a figure eight over a wooden bridge, and a stretch that runs right under Dad’s car, up on its lift. The neighborhood kids watch from their stand, the lap board shows the standings live, and at the start the neon tubes come on row by row. It’s where you take your license, on the club’s proving grounds: the slalom, the skidpad, the timed straight and the kickers.
9. Sound
  Car-to-car crashes that really hit
  When you ram another car, you finally hear it: a heavy thud with real weight and the crack of plastic, instead of the little clack from before. Five different sounds take turns, so two crashes in a row never sound the same. The harder the hit, the louder and deeper it gets.
10. Courses
  Maplewood lives: pigeons, butterflies, flags
  Look up in Maplewood: flocks of pigeons wheel over the rooftops while others sit in a row on the power lines. Butterflies flit around the garden flowers, and a flag ripples on a few porches.
October 7, 202610 updates
1. Courses
  Maplewood has some years on it
  Maplewood’s houses no longer look fresh from the factory: streaks under the eaves, paint faded on the sunny side, green creeping up the shady walls, black streaks and moss on the roofs, soot on the chimney tops. The sidewalks have their slabs, cracks and grass in the joints, and the driveways their joints and the oil stain of the parked car.
2. Courses
  Maplewood: power poles and lines
  11-metre wooden poles now line Maplewood’s streets, with their crossarms, insulators and transformers, and the power lines sag from one to the next above the road. Every house has its service drop, its meter on the wall and its air conditioner out back. Watch out: the poles are solid, don’t hit them head-on.
3. Cars
  Your car gets dirty as you race
  As the race goes on, your car picks up the dust and mud of whatever its tyres drive over: a little on the tarmac, much more on the park path, sand or gravel, and mud all over the sills in the mud patches. It creeps up from the wheels and dulls the gloss, and a puddle washes a bit of it off. Every race starts with a clean car. A soft shadow under every car also sits it on the road, especially on phones.
4. Courses
  Maplewood: a street with some history
  Maplewood’s street isn’t brand new anymore: wheel tracks polished into the tarmac, oil drips down the middle, cracks sealed with tar, patches, rubber in the corners, grime along the kerbs. Plus real cast-iron manhole covers and storm drains along the pavements.
5. Graphics
  Sunbeams through the maples
  On High and Ultra, you can now see the sun in the air: beams of light slip between the maples’ leaves, and the shadow of a house or a tree shows up in the light as you drive into the sun. Wherever you look, not just around the sun.
6. Graphics
  Shadows: “None” really turns them off
  The “Shadows” setting (Settings › Graphics, Advanced mode) gains a step, “Scenery”: the houses’ and trees’ shadows worked out in advance in Maplewood, and the clouds’, at no cost. It is the Low profile’s, on phones. “None” now turns off every shadow from the sun, the scenery’s included; 1 to 4 give live shadows, your car included.
7. Graphics
  Maplewood in bloom: gardens and mown lawns
  In Maplewood, every house now has a front garden: boxwood and hydrangeas on the mulch, an arborvitae at the corner, a border of petunias or marigolds. On a computer, the front lawns are mown in stripes along the street, light or dark depending on where you look from, and daisies, dandelions and clover grow wherever the grass is less tended. There’s a new setting too, “Local exposure”, under Settings › Graphics (Advanced mode): each part of the image exposed on its own, shadows brightened and the sky held back; off, one exposure for the whole image, with more contrast.
8. Game
  Photo mode: your car from every angle
  Pause a solo race and pick “Photo mode”: the camera breaks free and circles your car (drag to turn around, wheel to come closer, right-drag to move; on a phone, one finger to turn around, two to come closer and move). Set the field, the background blur and the exposure, hide the panel with H, then press Space or “Take the photo”: a 4K shot (2.5K on a phone), saved to your computer or shared from your phone. Races get a touch of it too: the far distance blurs slightly while the road ahead stays sharp, on Medium, High and Ultra; turn it off with “Depth of field” under Settings › Graphics (Advanced mode).
9. Graphics
  Maplewood at 5 p.m., under real clouds
  In Maplewood, the sun has dropped to 5 p.m.: lower and warmer, it lays long shadows across the streets and backlights the maples. The light from the sky, and the light the street bounces onto the house fronts, are now worked out in advance: the foot of the walls and the shade under porches and maples finally look right. Beyond the walls, the neighborhood carries on (a street on each side, houses, maples, then wooded hills in the haze), and real clouds drift by on the wind, their shadows sliding over the rooftops. On High and Ultra, the houses’ windows and the puddles reflect the street.
10. Performance
  No more hitches mid-race
  On phones, the little freeze that hit a few seconds after the start is gone: in Maplewood, on a recent phone, dropped frames went from 226 to 24 per race. On every device, no more hitch at the first shard you grab, or when the ghost takes to the track. On touch screens, the FPS counter is now hidden by default (bring it back in Settings › Graphics) and the picture stays sharper. On PC, Maplewood on Ultra with SSAA ×4 anti-aliasing no longer drops to 1 frame per second.
October 6, 20266 updates
1. Arsenal
  The arsenal, rebuilt from dome to bomb
  Every gadget has been rebuilt, with new effects, new sounds and a rumble on every hit. The Shield becomes the Dome, which takes two hits, sends rockets back and shoves cars away; the Steel Ball becomes the Big Marble, a hefty glass marble that bowls over cars and cones (“Strike!” on the second one). Water Balloons are lobbed to where your rival is headed, the Firework locks on before it dives (and the new Grand Finale fires three), the Bomb blasts the scenery and sets off the bombs nearby, and an explosion sets the Oil Slick alight, which a water balloon puts out. Capsules come back in 2.5 s, what’s inside depends on your place (oil slicks and marbles up front, turbos and rockets at the back), and Elite and Legend bots now steer around puddles and incoming balloons.
2. Sound
  No more synthetic sounds
  Every sound in the game is now a real sound effect: not one is made up on the fly by the browser anymore. Rival cars get real tire noise instead of a hiss, the title screen has a sound of its own, and the drift screech only plays on a real drift. Anything that doesn’t have its sound effect yet stays silent instead of playing a stand-in.
3. Progression
  Records and ghosts: a fresh start
  On October 6, every best lap and every ghost was wiped, on every course, world records included: a clean start for everyone. The ones your browser kept don’t count anymore either. Your next best lap becomes your record again and your ghost is reborn in Time Trial: the first records on every course are up for grabs.
4. Online
  Voltane’s Discord, one click away
  Drivers have a Discord now. In the museum’s menus, the plate with the Discord logo, in the toolbar next to sound and settings, opens it in a new tab; on the title screen, it’s the button to the left of the language flag. The link is also at the bottom of every email from the game.
5. Cars
  Smoother bodies, whole wheels
  No more bumps showing through the paint: every body in the garage has been smoothed, while edges, hoods and door lines stay crisp (the Firecracker 07 already was). Nine cars, including the Kitsune 86, the Clockwork 12 and the Jetstream 58, got their wheels back whole: no more holey tires spinning round, no more wonky wheels. In the museum, every car now sits on its springs the way it does in a race, and the box photos have been retaken, all from the front three-quarter.
6. Account
  Sign in with Google
  On the account screen, “Continue with Google” signs you in with no password to remember. If your Google address already has a Voltane account, it links up with it; if not, all that’s left is picking your driver name. The button is on the website too. On a phone, the account screen now stands upright, so typing is easier.
October 5, 20265 updates
1. Game
  Voltane now speaks English
  The whole game now comes in English: menus, races, cars, courses, the Gift Shop, emails, right down to the museum’s signs and posters. New players start in their browser’s language; to switch, tap the FR | EN flag on the title screen or go to Settings › General › Language, and everything flips instantly, no reload needed. The scenery on the courses is in English for everyone: Maplewood is an American suburb, after all. The playvoltane.com website speaks English too.
2. Game
  Volt is now Voltane, at playvoltane.com
  The game has a new name: Volt is now Voltane, with new logos, and lives at playvoltane.com (the old address takes you there on its own). Your account, your cars and your progress haven’t moved. The title screen shows a different scene at each launch, taking turns (the living room of the House, a Maplewood street, the Stunt Arena), under the word VOLTANE alone. Emails from the game now come from [email protected].
3. Courses
  Maplewood: drive under the bus
  In Maplewood, you can finally drive under the school bus and the parked station wagon: only their wheels stop you, and the camera ducks down with you. The bus and the wagon, the fences, the street signs, the play tower, the swings, the picnic table, the basketball hoop, the mailbox, the fire hydrant and the streetlights have all been remade, and the houses have picked up texture: wood under the paint, concrete, shingles, brick. Sign posts now stop cars instead of letting them drive straight through. On the bend toward Oak Street, the roadwork cones now curve in a bell along its whole length. And with SSAA ×4 anti-aliasing, capsules no longer show up twice, mirrored on the road.
4. Performance
  On iPhone, the game goes easy on memory
  On some iPhones, the game’s tab would close on its own, out of memory: on phones, the game now asks for much less of it. The course loads behind the “Charging up” screen; on the phones with the least memory, the museum steps aside during the race and comes back behind a “Back to the museum” veil, and the bots share three car models between them (still eight drivers per race). And on iPhone, a long press on text no longer brings up the magnifier or the “Copy” bubble.
5. Shop
  Gift Shop: every item gets its card
  At the Gift Shop’s Counter, every item’s picture now has a little yellow “i”: tap it to open its card. The item up big, its rarity, how long it lasts and what it does, the whole range, where it works, how to apply it, what the trade-in gives back for it, and at the bottom its price with “Buy”. Close it with its cross, a tap outside, Esc, or B on a controller. Across the menus, a tap outside the settings closes them, and a tap outside the pause menu resumes the race.
October 4, 20261 update
1. Progression
  21 cars to unbox, one per level
  The Garage becomes a pyramid of 21 boxes: the Firecracker 07 from the start, then one more car at every driver level, up to level 21. A complete blueprint, or five blueprint fragments of the same car, opens one ahead of time. Every new box opens in front of you the first time you see it: the carton shakes, the kraft paper falls away, the car hops onto its turntable and takes a victory lap. On the cartons in the Stockroom, “LV.”, “NEXT UP” and “OPEN ME” tell you where you stand.