SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed arrives more than a decade after the original SpeedRunners established itself as one of those deceptively simple multiplayer games capable of turning a friendly evening into a heated rivalry. Published by tinyBuild and developed by Fair Play Labs, the sequel does not attempt to reinvent the basic idea. Instead, it brings the familiar combination of 2D platforming, high-speed racing and weaponised mischief to PlayStation 5, while expanding the package with additional characters, maps, modes and support for larger online matches. After spending time with the PS5 version, including testing cross-platform play with Nintendo Switch and PC players, it is clear that the most important part of SpeedRunners is still intact. The question is whether everything surrounding that excellent core is substantial enough to make this feel like a meaningful sequel.
At its heart, SpeedRunners 2 remains remarkably straightforward. Players race through obstacle-filled 2D stages, using running, jumping, sliding, wall movement and the grappling hook to build and maintain momentum. The objective is not simply to reach a finish line first, but to gain enough distance that opponents fall outside the camera’s view. Once somebody is eliminated, the playable area begins closing in, increasing the pressure on everyone still competing until only one runner remains. That simplicity makes the game immediately understandable, but mastering its movement is another matter entirely. The best routes are not necessarily obvious, and learning when to grapple, which shortcut to take or how to maintain speed through a particular section provides a satisfying sense of progression. There is a genuine skill ceiling here, although newcomers may need some patience before they can compete with experienced players.
The power-ups are what turn that precise platforming into the kind of multiplayer chaos that makes the series work so well. Returning weapons such as the fireball and freeze ray can suddenly disrupt a carefully established lead, while the grappling hook can be used to interfere with opponents rather than simply aid movement. New additions add further opportunities for things to go wrong at exactly the worst possible moment. A race can therefore swing dramatically in a few seconds, which is frustrating when a well-executed run falls apart, but also precisely what makes another match so tempting immediately afterwards. There is a nice tension between technical mastery and outright sabotage: knowing a stage can get a player into first place, but surviving everyone else’s attempts to remove them from it is another matter. With up to eight players, that unpredictability becomes even more pronounced, although the experience naturally depends heavily on having human opponents who are willing to embrace the competitive chaos.
The sequel also tries to broaden the formula considerably. Ranked play, tournaments, custom games, private lobbies and experimental modes give players more ways to approach the basic mechanics, while the campaign provides an offline alternative built around the game’s superhero-themed cast and a storyline involving the defence of Rush City. Unfortunately, this is where some of the content starts to feel less convincing. The campaign does little to make the characters or setting particularly memorable, and its relatively straightforward challenges do not showcase the multiplayer mechanics at their best. It can serve as an extended introduction to the systems, but it lacks the depth or narrative interest necessary to make single-player progression feel like a major attraction. Several of the additional multiplayer modes likewise feel less compelling than the traditional race format. They are not necessarily broken ideas, but the classic mode is so effective that some of these alternatives feel more like diversions than genuine improvements.
That makes the lack of substantial evolution from the original somewhat difficult to ignore. The sequel is prettier and offers additional content, but a significant amount of its character and map selection remains familiar, while the absence of community-created maps is particularly noticeable for players who remember how much longevity user-generated content gave the previous game on PC. There is also a sense that some development effort might have been better spent refining the central experience rather than surrounding it with modes that are less immediately enjoyable. That does not make SpeedRunners 2 a bad sequel, because the fundamental gameplay remains very strong, but it does mean that returning players may find fewer compelling reasons to leave the original behind than the presence of a new numbered entry might suggest.
On PS5, the presentation has received a welcome visual upgrade. The characters are more detailed and expressive, while the stages have more distinctive environments and background artwork than the relatively minimalist presentation of the original. That additional detail gives the game more personality, and there is plenty to appreciate in the variety of locations and character designs. At the same time, speed creates a difficult balancing act for the visuals. When several runners, obstacles, effects and environmental details occupy the screen simultaneously, readability can suffer. Character outlines help separate competitors from their surroundings, but identical characters or skins can still make it difficult to tell who is who during particularly frantic moments. The improved artwork is therefore a mixed blessing: it makes the sequel look considerably more modern, but the cleaner visual simplicity of the original arguably worked better for a game where recognising the action instantly is more important than admiring the scenery.
The audio presentation takes a more understated approach and suits the gameplay well. Movement, impacts and the various effects accompanying jumps, grapples and power-ups give the action the necessary feedback without overwhelming the screen’s already busy activity. The music similarly supports the fast pace rather than demanding attention for itself. More importantly, the technical performance needs to keep up with the game’s mechanics, and the PS5 version generally delivers the smooth responsiveness that this kind of precision platformer requires. Our cross-platform testing with Nintendo Switch and PC was also useful in demonstrating the value of the game’s crossplay support. Being able to compete across platforms expands the potential player pool and makes the multiplayer proposition more flexible, particularly for groups that do not all own the same hardware.
Ultimately, SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed succeeds because the part that mattered most has survived the transition to a sequel. The movement remains tight, the level design rewards practice, and the combination of speed and disruptive power-ups produces exactly the kind of multiplayer moments that can turn a routine race into an argument over who cheated whom out of victory. The problem is that the game does not always know when to leave that winning formula alone. Its campaign is underwhelming, several additional modes feel less satisfying than the classic experience, and the lack of community-created content makes the package feel less expansive than it initially appears. Even so, when several human players are competing on a familiar route and everyone is fighting to stay ahead of the shrinking screen, SpeedRunners 2 demonstrates why the original formula worked in the first place. It is less a reinvention of SpeedRunners than a polished continuation of its central idea – and when that idea is working at full speed, there is still plenty of fun to be found.
Score: 7.0/10