You can still hear it if you close your eyes. That specific, industrial-strength thump of a Prodigy bassline. It’s 1995. You’re staring at a CRT television, and everything is moving too fast. That was the magic of WipEout the video game. It didn't just feel like a racing game; it felt like a club at 3:00 AM.
Most racing games back then were trying to be "simulators." They wanted to track tire pressure and fuel consumption. Not Psygnosis. They wanted to track how many G-forces a human brain could handle while listening to Chemical Brothers. Honestly, WipEout was more of a cultural event than a piece of software. It’s the reason the original PlayStation didn't just sell to kids—it sold to adults who spent their weekends in warehouses and art galleries.
The Designer Republic and why the vibes were immaculate
If you talk about WipEout, you have to talk about The Designer Republic (TDR). This Sheffield-based design firm basically gave the game its soul. Before this, video game menus looked like... well, video game menus. They were clunky and functional. TDR treated the UI like high-fashion branding.
They created fictional sponsors like AG Systems, Auricom, and Feisar. These weren't just names; they had logos that looked like they belonged on a futuristic skyscraper. You weren't just picking a car. You were picking a lifestyle. The team at Studio Liverpool (then Psygnosis) understood that the "cool factor" was just as important as the frame rate.
That aesthetic reached its peak with WipEout 2097 (or WipEout XL if you were in the States). The color palettes were aggressive. The track designs, like Piranha and Gare d'Europa, felt like they were carved out of a dystopian city that actually lived and breathed.
It's kinda wild to think about now, but WipEout was actually played in nightclubs. Sony set up "chill-out" zones in clubs like Ministry of Sound. Think about that. People were literally dancing, then sitting down to play a video game while sweating through their shirts. That’s a level of "cool" that no modern gaming franchise has ever quite replicated.
How WipEout the video game changed the way we hear games
Before the mid-90s, game music was mostly MIDI bleeps and bloops. Good ones! But MIDI nonetheless. Then WipEout happened.
Co-creator Nick Burcombe famously had the idea for the game while listening to a remix of "The Age of Love" in a club. He realized that the speed of the music matched the speed he wanted on screen. The result was a soundtrack that included Underworld, Orbital, and Leftfield.
🔗 Read more: Jigsaw Would Like Play Game: Why We’re Still Obsessed With Digital Puzzles
- Tim Wright (CoLD SToRAGE): He’s the unsung hero. While the big-name DJs got the headlines, Wright’s original tracks for the first game defined the sound of the future. "Messij" is still a banger.
- The Licensed Era: By the time 2097 rolled around, the soundtrack was a legitimate "Who’s Who" of Big Beat and Techno. It wasn't just background noise. It was the engine.
If you play the game today, the music still holds up. It’s aggressive. It’s relentless. It forces you to blink less. You’ve probably noticed that modern "synthwave" or "cyberpunk" games try to do this, but they usually feel like they're wearing a costume. WipEout was the genuine article.
The physics of frustration (and why we loved it)
Let’s be real: WipEout was hard. Like, "throw your controller at the wall" hard.
Most racing games let you slide around corners. In WipEout, if you hit a wall, you basically stopped dead. Your shield would deplete. Your ship would spark. You’d get overtaken by five AI pilots who didn't seem to have any empathy for your struggle.
The air-brake system was the key. You didn't just turn with the d-pad; you used the L1 and R1 triggers to flare the air-brakes. It was a rhythmic dance. If you timed it right, you’d drift through a hairpin at 500 mph without losing a drop of momentum. If you timed it wrong, you were scrap metal.
- Learning the lines: You couldn't just "react" to the track. You had to memorize it. You had to know exactly when the drop-off at Altima VII was coming so you could nose your ship down.
- Weapon Management: This wasn't Mario Kart. The weapons felt heavy. Landing a Plasma bolt was a feat of skill, not luck. And the Quake? Watching the track ripple in front of you was—and still is—one of the coolest visual effects in gaming history.
What most people get wrong about the series' "death"
There’s this narrative that WipEout died because people stopped liking it. That’s basically nonsense.
The real story is more about corporate shifts and the changing landscape of Sony’s internal studios. Studio Liverpool was closed in 2012, right after they finished WipEout 2048 for the PlayStation Vita. It was a heartbreaking moment for the industry. This was a studio that had been around since the Commodore 64 days as Psygnosis.
But the DNA didn't vanish. A lot of those developers went on to form Firesprite, which Sony ended up buying back years later. It’s a full-circle moment.
💡 You might also like: Siegfried Persona 3 Reload: Why This Strength Persona Still Trivializes the Game
And then there’s the Omega Collection. Released on PS4, it was a remaster of HD, Fury, and 2048. It proved that the demand was still there. In 4K and 60fps, the game looks better than most titles released last year. The sense of speed is nauseating in the best way possible. If you haven't played it in VR, you haven't lived. It’s a literal vomit-inducer if you aren't careful, but man, what a way to go.
The competitors: Trying to fill the void
Since 2012, other studios have tried to take the crown. We’ve had Redout, Pacer (which actually involved some original WipEout devs), and BallisticNG.
BallisticNG is probably the most honest tribute. It looks like a lost PS1 game. It captures that specific floaty-yet-heavy physics model that made the original so polarizing. But even with these great indies, they lack that "Sony budget" polish. They lack the Designer Republic branding. They lack the cultural weight.
WipEout wasn't just about the racing. It was about the "Anti-Gravity Racing Championship" being a real, televised sport in the year 2197. It was about the lore of the pilots and the evolution of the ships.
Why we need it back in 2026
Honestly, the racing genre is a bit stale right now. You’ve got your hyper-realistic sims like Gran Turismo and your open-world fests like Forza Horizon. Both are great, but they're safe.
We need something that feels dangerous again.
WipEout the video game represented a time when developers were willing to be weird. They weren't making games for "everyone." They were making a game for the people who stayed up too late, drank too much espresso, and wanted to live in the future.
📖 Related: The Hunt: Mega Edition - Why This Roblox Event Changed Everything
The technology we have now—haptic feedback on the DualSense, 120Hz displays, ray-tracing—is practically built for WipEout. Imagine feeling the vibration of the air-brakes through the triggers. Imagine the neon reflections of a rain-slicked Neo-Tokyo bouncing off your ship's hull in real-time.
Moving forward: How to experience WipEout today
If you’re looking to scratch that itch, don't just wait for a sequel that might never come. There are ways to get your fix right now.
First, get the WipEout Omega Collection. It’s often on sale, and it’s the definitive way to play the "modern" era. It includes the 2048 campaign, which acts as a prequel to the entire series, showing the very first AG races on city streets.
Second, look into the WipEout Phantom Edition. It’s a community-driven PC port of the original 1995 game that fixes the glitches, adds widescreen support, and makes it playable on modern hardware without the "wobbly" textures of the PS1. It’s a labor of love that proves how much this community cares.
Third, check out the soundtrack on Spotify. Seriously. Look for "WipEout CoLD SToRAGE" or the 2097 soundtrack. It’s the perfect music for working, driving (be careful), or just cleaning your house at high speed.
Finally, keep an eye on the indie scene. Games like BallisticNG are keeping the spirit alive with massive modding communities. People are literally recreating every track from the original games inside these new engines.
The AG racing dream isn't dead. It’s just waiting for the next green light.
Next Steps for the AG Pilot:
- Dust off the PS4/PS5: Download the Omega Collection and try to gold-medal the 2048 "Zone" events.
- Join the Community: The WipEout subreddit and various Discord servers are surprisingly active with people still running time trials and sharing custom ship skins.
- Support the Spiritual Successors: If you want more WipEout, support the devs making high-speed combat racers. It's the only way the industry knows the genre is still viable.