Disney Speedstorm

Game modes

The game includes various different single-player and multiplayer modes. Single-player modes include "Starter Circuit", a series of events that effectively serves as the game's "tutorial", limited events, which offer rewards for completing specific objectives or for getting a fast time on a leaderboard compared with other players online, "Season Tour", a limited-time campaign mode that changes each new content season, and "Tournaments", in which players race as a single Racer from either the Mickey and Friends franchise or a franchise that was featured in a previous season for a series of four races to earn points. Multiplayer includes ranked multiplayer, where players race to earn points to unlock tiers of rewards for each of their unlocked Racers (as well as for the player overall as of the game's eighth season), regulated multiplayer,^[19] a separate ranked multiplayer (with its own set of rewards that change weekly) that puts all Racers at the same performance levels, "Private Track", which allows players to set up their own custom races online with friends or invited players, and "Local Freeplay", the game's only offline mode, which features custom races for one to four players (one or two players on older consoles) in split-screen multiplayer.^[20][21] Ranked multiplayer can either be played either solo (up to eight Racers racing against one another) or in a team in a three-on-three race.

The races themselves are available in different types that feature different gimmicks: "Classic" is a traditional race; "Single Skill" forces all Racers to use the same offensive skill; "Floating Objects" have speed boosts and skill items floating above the ground, thus forcing Racers to jump to reach them; "Fog Challenge" covers the track in a dense fog—limiting visibility—and removes the minimap from the player's heads-up display; and "Last One Standing" is an elimination race where after a short (and declining) amount of time passes, the last place Racer either loses a "shield drone" and is teleported ahead on the track to try to avoid falling back to last or is eliminated if they have no more drones remaining. In the season two update in June 2023, the game added two new race types called "Color Match" and "Follow the Leader";^[22] the former type forces players to pick up power-up items corresponding to one of two colors—green and purple—each of them is assigned to as indicated by the HUD and an underglow effect beneath their vehicle, switching between colors during the race, while the latter adds a long slipstream trail behind the race leader that provides a speed boost to the racers following the trail.

Characters and environments

As of February 2026^[update], the game has a total of 117^[c] "Racers" (playable characters) from 34 Disney media franchises,^{[23][24][14][15][22]} referred to in-game as "collections". Each racer is assigned one of four Classes—Speedster, Trickster, Brawler, or Defender—which defines their playstyle. Many franchises also have an affiliated track environment, each featuring multiple track layouts, with Mickey Mouse & Friends having two (one based on modern Mickey Mouse media and one based on black-and-white shorts such as Steamboat Willie), while Disney Speedstorm itself has two original environments, "Arbee's Arena" and "Arbee's Short Circuit". Additionally, one environment, the Pirates of the Caribbean-inspired "A Pirate's Life", received an expansion via an update for the game's ninth season, adding new areas of the map and new track layouts.

The game also features a wide voice cast, most of whom reprise their respective characters from their original works.^[25][26][27] Beginning with Season 7: Sugar Rush, however, only selected new Racers will receive voice lines, with some unvoiced racers (specifically Calhoun, Fear, Sally, Mr. Incredible and Baymax) getting voice lines later on.^[28] However, since Season 11, all new Racers (excluding Rinzler) will be getting voice lines with the aforementioned Mr. Incredible getting them during the third part.

Downloadable content

On 27 March 2023, Gameloft released a trailer announcing three "Founder's Packs" that would be available during the game's early access period.^[57][58][59] The Founder's Packs, which were required for early access, all contained Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck as unlocked racers (with the Deluxe Founder's Pack adding Mulan and the Ultimate Founder's Pack adding her, Hercules, and Jack Sparrow), plus a choice to immediately unlock Baloo, Belle, Beast, Elizabeth Swann, Li Shang, or Mowgli; Tokens (the game's premium currency; 4,000 Tokens for Standard, 7,000 for Deluxe, and 12,000 for Ultimate), two (or three for Ultimate) Golden Pass Credits (unlocking the Golden Pass, the game's battle pass system), exclusive racing suits and kart liveries for each of the immediately unlocked racers (depending on the player's chosen tier), exclusive Donald Duck kart wheels and wing (Ultimate only), and an exclusive player avatar and profile motto.^[59]

As a free-to-play title, all content in the game (apart from the Founder's Pack exclusives) is added via seasonal content updates, which are added approximately every two months. Initially, each season added four or five new racers from a newly added franchise of focus for that season plus new map based on that franchise. However, starting with the Big Hero 6-themed 13th season, each season now adds three new racers from one franchise. Additionally, new "bonus" racers mostly not affiliated with the season's focused-on franchise are made available mid-season (with the exception of the Inside Out-themed Season 8, Journey of Emotions, which added Anxiety and Ennui from Inside Out 2), as well as new crew members and customization options for the racers.

Monetization changes

On 9 April 2024, Gameloft announced in a community news update changes to the game's Golden Passes for the game's then-upcoming seventh season.^[67] The company announced that, among other changes, each season would be split into two parts lasting approximately one month each, with each part having its own Golden Pass, and Tokens—which can be either purchased as microtransactions or earned through ranked multiplayer—can no longer be used to purchase Golden Passes, effectively making Golden Passes only available via a direct purchase.^[67]

The monetization changes were met with strong backlash from players.^{[68][69][70][71][72][73]} Players criticized the changes as being "predatory" and labeled Gameloft as "thieves".^{[68][69][70][71]} Paul McNally of ReadWrite pointed out that the announcement comes "at a time when the Helldivers 2 Warbond battle pass is being praised for being so generous with its in-game currency allowing players easy access to its premium tiers for free".^[68] Players review bombed the game on Steam after the announcement, with Destructoid's Michael Beckwith pointing out that the game's Steam version had been losing active players since November 2023 according to Steam Charts.^[70] Some players requested refunds for their past purchases,^[70] others threatened to boycott the game by either refusing to make any further purchases or stop playing Speedstorm altogether,^[70][71] and at least one Redditor on the Speedstorm subreddit has proposed filing a class action lawsuit.^[72]

On 17 April 2024, in response to the backlash, Gameloft announced that players could continue to purchase Golden Pass Credits with Tokens until 16 May 2024, allowing players to buy future Golden Passes using Credits bought with Tokens up to that date, but otherwise would continue with plans to restrict Golden Pass purchases to either direct payments or Golden Pass Credits afterward.^[74]

On 1 August 2024, Gameloft released a limited time event to unlock Ennui from Inside Out 2. However, only five shards could be obtained from the event (ten is required to unlock her), requiring players to purchase and use Tokens to purchase her designated loot box, which had a rate of 15% to grant Ennui racer shards. This mandatory loot box purchase to unlock a single Racer caused another strong backlash from players.^{[citation needed]}

Player count and revenue

In September 2023, Disney Speedstorm was the 10th most downloaded free-to-play game on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in the United States and Canada, and was the 7th in Europe.^[75] In October, the game rose to 4th place in the United States and Canada, while it placed 2nd in Europe.^[76] The game remained among the top titles in November, placing 7th in Europe.^[77] In the fourth quarter of 2023, Disney Speedstorm on iOS in Europe had weekly revenue peaking at approximately $2,000 in mid-December. Downloads reached around 25,800 in late October, while active users peaked at about 32,200 during the same period.^[78]

By June 2024, Disney Speedstorm had surpassed one million mobile pre-registrations.^[79][80] In the fourth quarter of 2024, the game on iOS generated weekly revenue of around $3,500. Downloads reached 14,800 in mid-October, and active users increased to over 56,000 by the end of December.^[81] Vivendi later said Disney Speedstorm, alongside Disney Dreamlight Valley, Asphalt Legends Unite, Disney Magic Kingdoms, and March of Empires, represented altogether 57% of Gameloft's total revenues, and ranked as one of their five best sellers in 2024.^[82][83]

In the first quarter of 2025, Disney Speedstorm on Android had weekly revenue ranging from approximately $5,000 to $7,000. Downloads peaked at around 2,400, and active users remained below 7,000 throughout the quarter.^[84] In the first half of 2025, Disney Speedstorm, together with Disney Dreamlight Valley, Asphalt Legends Unite, Disney Magic Kingdoms, and March of Empires, was among Gameloft's top-performing titles. Together, the games accounted for 57% of the company's total revenue, placing them among its top five best-sellers.^[85][86]

Awards

In 2023, Disney Speedstorm was nominated at the Pocket Tactics Awards in the Mobile Game of the Year category.^[87] In 2024, the game was nominated at the App Store Awards in the iPad Game of the Year category.^[88][89] In 2025, it won the award for best multiplatform game from the Google Play Awards.^[90]