15 best racing games for Android

Racing games are among the most popular in all of mobile gaming. It’s an extremely competitive genre, and there are a ton actually good options. Racing games were among the first to take advantage of phone hardware by utilizing the accelerometer as a steering wheel of sorts to steer cars. Other control methods exist, but turning the phone is a classic racer component. This is also one of the most varied genres, with an excellent selection of both free-to-play and premium options. Here are the best racing games for Android.

We’d also like to mention Riptide GP: Renegade (Google Play) and its predecessors. You race jet skis instead of cars, and despite being old, it’s still one of the better racing games with solid mechanics. You can also emulate some old classics that you can’t buy anymore.

The best racing games for Android

Asphalt 9: Legends and Asphalt Xtreme

Price: Free to play

Asphalt 9: Legends is the latest racing game from Gameloft and the latest in the popular Asphalt franchise. It features excellent graphics, solid mechanics, and a metric ton of content to play through. That includes over 800 events, weekly and monthly events, and online PvP action. You also get up to 50 cars to unlock, various upgrades, and more. Its freemium strategy is a little more aggressive than we would normally like.

However, aside from that, it’s a good arcade racing title with some of the best graphics of any racing game. Asphalt 8: Airborne is also still actively updated if you want a more mature title with the old control scheme.

Assoluto Racing

Price: Free to play

Assoluto Racing is another competent free-to-play racing game in a very packed and competitive segment. It focuses primarily on track racing along with drifting. The game also features pretty decent graphics, simple manual controls, and plenty of events to play through. Unlike the most popular game in the segment, Asphalt 9, we like that this has a gas pedal.

Some other game features include online multiplayer and the ability to purchase, tune, and customize cars. You can change everything from the weight to the gear ratios, making it a hair deeper than many other mobile racing games. It’s not great on lower-end devices; otherwise, it’s surprisingly good.

Beach Buggy Racing 2

Price: Free to play

Beach Buggy Racing 2 is very similar to games like Mario Kart. It’s a kart racer with various special abilities to give you an edge. Players race across a variety of tracks in a variety of locations, each with its own obstacles. The game includes 45 power-ups, over 40 karts to collect, online PvP, various customizations, and various game modes. We do wish it had some tertiary features like offline play and Google Play Games achievements. After all, this is a Vector Unit game, the same developers of the Riptide GP series. The Riptide series has those kinds of features. Otherwise, it’s a good game.

CSR Racing 2

Price: Free to play

The CSR Racing series is one of the most popular racing games out there. CSR Racing 2 is a drag racing game. You’ll be buying cars, adding upgrades, and then racing. It features a campaign mode with plenty of races. You’ll also be able to do online racing against people if you want. There are plenty of cars to collect, and the graphics are actually pretty good. It’s a good time killer in the racing genre. CSR Racing 2 is a freemium game. That doesn’t make it bad, but it’s something to be aware of.

Dirt Trackin’ 2

Price: Free

Dirt Trackin’ 2 is the sequel to one of the more excellent racing games on mobile. The sequel is also quite good. The game features five classes of cards, a career mode, customizable cards, and a few different control schemes. It also boasts above-average mechanics, varying difficulties, customizable controls for the player, and PvP multiplayer. Admittedly, the graphics aren’t the best compared to most games on this list, but they are better than the first game in the series. However, the customization level and content make up for it. 

Grand Prix Story

Price: $6.49

Grand Prix Story is a racing sim from Kairosoft. The developers are really good at making quirky, simple simulation games with decent mechanics. You’ll be the boss of your own team. That puts you in charge of training drivers, acquiring sponsors, and winning as many races as possible. It’s a good approach for those who like racing but prefer a more hands-off approach. Those looking for a realistic experience may be disappointed. However, it’s still not a bad game. It’s also a pay-once game with no in-app purchases.

GRID Autosport

Price: Free / $9.99

GRID Autosport is a port of the PC version. It was also one of the best games launched in all of 2019. The game boasts 100 cars along with 100 total races. The game is focused on a single-player experience, and you get not only adjustable difficulties but also a variety of racing styles and little niceties like hardware controller support. This is one of the easiest recommendations on the list because it feels so complete.

The price tag is a bit high, but you get the full PC game along with all of the DLC for that one price, so it’s hard to complain too much. This is one of the good ones, trust us. There is also a demo version in the Play Store here. If you want to go that route, you can buy the DLC from the demo version to unlock the full version.

Hill Climb Racing 2

Price: Free to play

Hill Climb Racing 2 is one of the newer racing games on Android. It features a simple premise, colorful graphics, and simple controls. You’ll be racing up and down hills against opponents. It sounds easier than it actually is. Players can also customize their vehicles, tune them to behave a certain way, and more. The game includes a campaign, an online multiplayer mode, achievements, daily tasks, and challenges. It also works pretty well on older devices. It’s a freemium game. That’s not a big deal, but we just wanted to let you know. This is also available as an offline racing game as well.

Horizon Chase

Price: Free

Horizon Chase was one of the best racing games of 2015. It features retro-inspired graphics. There is also a lot to do. It features dozens of tracks, various cars to unlock, and more. This game is unique because it has complete Android TV support and NVIDIA Shield TV support, and you can use most game controllers with it. There is also an online multiplayer mode and leaderboards to round out the experience. The developers are also adding new events; we couldn’t be happier. Yes, you can play this racing game offline as well.

KartRider Rush+

Price: Free to play

KartRider Rush+ is an arcade-style kart racer. The game has several game modes, including speed, arcade, ranked, and story modes. There are even time trials to lower your times on each track. In addition, your racer has various customizations to make it how you want. There are also power-ups to help you mid-race. The mechanics are reasonably fun, even if they lack realism. The game’s updates come rapidly; some characters are locked behind paywalls. We’re not fans of that part, but the rest of the game is pretty good.

Mario Kart Tour

Price: Free to play

Mario Kart Tour briefly held the record as the most successful mobile game launch in history until Call of Duty: Mobile came around a few weeks later. The game’s mobile version is a bit watered down from the console experience, but there’s enough there to feel like a Mario Kart game rather than just another mobile racer. You can unlock a variety of racers from the Mushroom Kingdom and compete in various races, and there are a couple of different game modes as well. It even supports multiplayer after a mid-2020 update. Nintendo needs to tone down the micro-transactions a little bit, but otherwise, this is a delightful mobile arcade racer with just enough Mario Kart to feel like a Mario Kart game.

Motorsport Manager Racing

Price: Free to play

Motorsport Manager Racing is essentially the free-to-play version of Motorsport Mobile Manager 3. It’s a simulator with an online multiplayer element. Players assemble a motorsport team with a driver, build a car, and then race the car against online opponents in 10-person races. It also features real drivers from the sport, leaderboards, and decent graphics.

It’s the only Motorsport Manager game that still gets updates on the Play Store, but you can still get Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 (Google Play) as long as you don’t mind it not being updated since 2020.

Need for Speed No Limits

Price: Free

Real Racing 3

Price: Free to play

Real Racing 3 is among the more realistic racing games on our list, which gives some credence to the game’s name. It’s also a favorite among our readership. The game is full of content, including over 100 cars from various manufacturers, various game modes, including real-time multiplayer, and even the game’s race tracks, which are digital versions of real race tracks. There are over 2000 total events with varying rules and types of races. This one is fairly old, so we wouldn’t blame you for wanting something a little more recent. There is much content to play through with this one, though.

TopSpeed 2

Price: Free to play

TopSpeed 2 is the successor to TopSpeed, a racing game that topped over ten million downloads. The second game in the series is actually pretty good as well. The game boasts over 70 unlockable cars, a surprisingly deep tuning mode, various single and multiplayer game modes, leaderboards, various customizations, and more. The graphics are also quite good, with plenty of minor details for car fans. The mechanics and gameplay aren’t too difficult, though, and, like all free-to-play games, the grind gets more intense over time. The developer, T-Bull, has a rather large selection of racing games, and they’re all pretty decent.

If we missed any of the best racing games for Android, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.