Screamer PS5 Review. Like a shooting star, BURN! A remake of the 1995 racer of the same name, Screamer is a high-energy racing game with a destructive edge containing a storyline with a band of anime characters, a goliath-sized vehicular tournament for a superlative max prize, and themes of revenge and ambition which push the momentum of the narrative forward. Have famed Italian racing developers Milestone reinvigorated the Screamer experience over 30 years after the original’s release, or is it nothing but a smoldering wreckage?
Pulsing with the arcade thrills that echo early 2010s standouts like Split/Second: Velocity and BLUR, Screamer’s modern reimagining explodes with a renewed aura, one which majorly departs from the mid-90s classics it shares its name with.
Screamer Review (PS5) – Screaming Out Loud
This modern take on screamer swaps out generic circuits for futuristic Cyberpunk alternatives, bungs in a story with multi-lingual anime characters, and places emphasis on destruction racing over simplistic arcade racing like the originals did. It’s kind of like what Bugbear Entertainment did to morph Ridge Racer: Unbounded back in 2012, though unlike the latter example, Screamer is a successful reworking of its forbears that evolves the franchise’s identity. However, some may see it as an abandonment of what came before.
Screamer takes place in a neon city called Neo Rey, and although it likely didn’t summon much thought to conceive the name, Neo Rey is more varied than you may think. Not only do you race around circuits ignited in a blaze of neon, but there are scorching deserts and forests to inject the scenery with more diversity. The scenery is lush and exciting to race in, so you’ll want to invite yourself to soak all Neo Rey has to offer.
A Neon Screamer
Neo Rey is a dystopian city, and as such it is highly corrupt, which is easy to sniff at when you and your gang of racers enter a tournament to win billions of dollars by literally destroying your competition with your very own ride. The illusive Mr A is pulling the strings and oversees the tournament and brings together the drivers known as Screamers to take part.
Considering the story is ultimately about winning a substantial amount of money and revenge sends sportsmanship and respect into a burning heap, Screamer isn’t so much about friendship and fair competition as it is about obliterating your opposition mercilessly because money is more important than the health and well being of the tournament participants. Revenge is another unhealthy ingredient mixed into Screamer’s dystopian stew, with the death of The Green Reaper’s mentor Quinn Connolly putting a bee in their bonnet.
Characters in Screamer are a chatty bunch during cutscenes. They natter incessantly at each other, yakking and yakking away. For the benefit of the story told they serve their purpose, but usually you’ll have to endure long dialogues in every cutscene, which can become too dull, even if interesting developments take place.
Dialogue exchanges often happen in different languages such as French and Japanese. How any of these characters can communicate without a translator is a mystery, but it is definitely appreciable that Screamer has chosen a multi-lingual approach regarding its cast of petrolheads, which helps it to stand out from its contemporaries.
Actually, outstanding does describe Screamer in a myriad of ways, it’s definitely not a conventional racing game towing a triple A line, it’s a racing game that pops in ways you don’t usually see on PS5. Whether it’s the anime characters, the story of destruction and revenge, the sleek cyberpunk inspiration, or the chaos-centered gameplay, Screamer certainly makes a screaming impression-hence the name of the game.
A Tournament of Teamwork And Talking
The main portion of Screamer takes place in Tournament Mode, where you’ll listen through story cutscenes before the game grants you the chance to get behind the wheel. At first you’ll be learning the ropes by completing simplistic objectives, where you’ll gain an understanding of Screamer’s controls and how to initiate actions such as drifting and the powerful Overdrive action. As you progress more complex and involved objectives come into play, and you’ll need to finish in the top three to advance the story along. Thankfully accommodating difficulty options are available, so you shouldn’t feel stuck during your playthrough, but with the story’s length you’ll want to be settled in good and proper to get the most out of it.
While Screamer does a serviceable job bouncing between story and racing, the cutscenes can be overlong and interfere with the pacing of the experience. When you want to race you likely won’t want to stick around waiting for lengthy dialogues to conclude. They are skippable sure, but if there was less bickering and the story had more dramatic elements, it’d pull in our attention a lot easier.
Going Into Overdrive
On the track, you’ll be floored by how pristine everything looks, but you cannot afford to be distracted as you’ll be too busy blasting through your competition and aiming to keep the lead supposing you can catch up to the front of the pack. Usually you start the race with a mess of cars ahead of you, so doing your utmost to fly ahead of rivals is your primary concern, but luckily Screamer gives you some extreme options to leave your opponents choking on your dust and exhaust fumes.
Before you get to the real frenetic entertainment though you’ll want to perfect the drift. Drifting is suitably attached to the right thumbstick, and allows your ride to coast around corners with a satisfying burst of speed. Just make sure you’re using drift carefully because a few tracks are narrow and will require more care to ensure you can coast around corners with breezy precision. Downtown Run has an impressive neon glow but the winding roads are tucked in by barriers on the outskirts of the track, so coupled with other Screamers, your room to manoeuvre during drifts can be minimal.
Screamer’s high-energy racing wouldn’t mean much without boost, so when you’re looking to catch-up or burst forward with zippy momentum, you can tap the required shoulder button to access a miniature triangular prompt with an outer zone for a generic flame-fueled boost, and an inner triangle gifting you a perfect boost sizzling with a pleasing electrical charge. This type of boost can be charged by filling a sync meter, which can be achieved by drafting, drifting and slip-streaming.
Stronger than boost though, is the Overdrive ability, containing a charge with as much sudden shock potential as a thunder strike from Zeus, one that can also be used to destroy your opposition by scything right through them at very high speed. The furious benefit of Overdrive can be accumulated by utilizing shields and regular boosts, but be warned, if you are too careless with it or use it at the wrong time, your vehicle will be obliterated. Rocketing forward with Overdrive is always exciting, but it can come to a combustible stop if used improperly.
Furthermore, you are granted access to a Strike option you can take advantage of by filling up the entropy bar by two slots. Strike is a momentary offensive charge that bolts you forward and is capable of barging into and wiping those in front of you. Strike isn’t particularly exciting, but it is a middle ground between regular boosting and Overdrive, and provides you with a carnage-causing option that’s lightweight but serviceable.
An Evolved Screamer
Outside of the meat and potatoes of the Tournament Mode, Screamer boasts an impressive array of single player and multiplayer options. You can take on score, time trial and Overdrive challenges, access the Arcade Mode to race solo or with a team to take down all who oppose you. There’s plenty to do here that it comparatively dwarfs many racing games in terms of raw content.
Now, some may feel dismayed that Screamer has departed so radically from those mid-90s classics. Track designs are more complicated and nuanced, there’s a focus on destruction rather than clean driving, and the entire presentation has been uplifted to the point it’s completely different besides the namesake it carries. You shouldn’t be dismayed though, as evolution has ensured that Screamer is as the name suggests and it has accomplished what it has set out to do in spite of the past.
The music really hits hard with electric punk, emo and rock to blend harmoniously with the anime vibes and the meteor-surging style of racing gameplay. Screamer definitely knocks it out of the park with what it strives to achieve musically, though the character voices and script don’t measure up as strongly despite a quirky cast.
Generally, playing Screamer is a reminder of racing games from a bygone era, where experimentation and new ideas gave way to exciting bombast. The best compliment Screamer receives here and outright deserves, is that the racing experience is very much one of a kind on PS5, and allows Milestone to carve its own trail in a sea of timid racing games. Screamer is definitely a shining prodigy worthy of your time due to all the modes, mechanics and massacring it confidently conjures up to give you a gas-guzzling surprise. Merging anime with a story-driven racer hasn’t been executed like this, and that’s an impressive feat.
The Tournament Mode is overly long with cutscenes that drag, and you may not find it to be as pleasingly accessible as the games it cribs inspiration from, but Screamer does its darnedest to impress, and it does so given the myriad of modes and how on point the presentation is. You’ll certainly be screaming with approval when you get your hand on Screamer – just don’t wake the neighbours.
Screamer will be released on March 26, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.
The review copy was generously provided by the publisher.