Top 5 Free Online Racing Games

If your main criticism of World of Warcraft is ‘not enough cars’, don’t worry. There are now plenty of racing MMO games for you to play – here are my five favorites. They should cover everyone from the casual to the hardcore racer, and they’re all free to play:

Need for Speed World

EA’s Need for Speed World is basically some older Need for Speed games stuck together to make an open racing world. That’s no bad thing though, because even though the series has had its ups and downs, it guarantees good arcade racing all the time. Need for Speed World is really well designed and lets you get right into the street racing its famous for.

AutoClub Revolution

If you want something more realistic, newcomer AutoClub Revolution is for you. About to enter open Beta, AutoClub Revolution is aiming to be the Forza of online PC racing. It’s a free-to-play game that’s been developed closely with the beta testing community. The game launches from your browser, and the overall presentation is really clean and modern, with non of the over stuffed interfaces that plague MMOs normally.

TrackMania Nations Forever

It’s been superseded by the excellent sequel, but the original TrackMania Nations Forever is still really great fun. On of the most over-the-top racers around, the looping and sweeping tracks in TrackMania Nations Forever are a blast to play, and competing online is easy and really addictive. You’ll need to have a free Steam account to play

Drift City

With it’s cell-shaded graphics, Drift City looks like a cartoon, so the arcade handling of the game is not a surprise. Drift City is the only one of these games to really have a story – it’s set in the future on an island that’s home to a precious new fuel source. The island has become so dangerous, it’s now free of pedestrians. Drift City plays like a standard mission based MMORPG, where you have to slowly build up your XP to improve your car and abilities.

Live for Speed

Before AutoClub Revolution, Live for Speed was the most realistic free online racing game around. You’ll really need a good controller to get to grips with Live for Speed because it takes no prisoners when it comes to handling! The developer recommends a steering wheel, and after repeated spins using the keyboard, I can corroborate that advice. This is the ideal option for anyone looking for a serious free online multiplayer racing game.