Dead Axle

Dead Axle is a top-down destruction racing game. You start as a nobody with a dented hatchback and a few hundred dollars, entering Saturday derbies at Gutter Lane Salvage. Win, wreck and get noticed, and the career takes you from local derbies to banger racing, through the Underground's street races, to the Big Leagues and the championship night at the Ironbowl.

Destruction is the point. Panels crumple where they're hit, bumpers, doors and bonnets tear off, wheels come loose and roll away, glass shatters, engines smoke and catch fire, and wrecks go up in a fireball. The damage changes how the car drives: a smashed front costs engine power, a bent corner pulls the steering, a lost wheel drags you sideways, and a cooked radiator overheats you into limp mode.

Race in every kind of place. Destruction derbies and takedown challenges in a scrapyard ringed by crushed cars, a drowned cattle field and a floodlit concrete stadium. Banger races round a figure of eight and the stadium oval. Rallies on red dirt through jungle temple ruins, across a rope bridge and through a river ford, and on logging roads through the pines past a sawmill. Closed-street circuits in the city, and after dark, street races and time attacks through live traffic and crowds of pedestrians, with the police joining in when you're spotted.

Barriers, tyre walls, fences, signs, market stalls, crates and fuel drums all break, and the drums explode. Debris piles up as the race goes on.

A wreck is never the end of a career: the yard patches it up for free, every tier has a free event that pays start money, and when you're skint you can watch an ad for cash, work a shift on the crusher line, or try the Back Room's blackjack, hold'em and one-armed bandit with your in-game cash.

The field fights back: named rivals with their own grudges and lines, rammers, clean racers and dirty blockers, all on the same handling as you. Prize money pays for repairs, new cars, engine, gearbox, tyre, armour and nitro upgrades and paint. Sign sponsors for a fee per race and a bonus for their goal.

Twenty-three cars to buy, from a microcar and an ice-cream van to a hearse, a stock car, a tow truck and a stretch limo, each with its own handling. Paint them gloss, metallic, matte, primer or rust, pick a livery and a race number, and watch your upgrades go on the car: ram bars, armour plates, nitro bottles, a blower. Every race leaves its dust and mud behind.

Built in real-time 3D on the Concrete Crown engine, with its car handling, weather and lights. Play with keyboard and mouse, a gamepad, or touch controls on your phone, landscape first. Your career is kept in your Aicade save.