Formerly known as Racing Apex, the indie project from Lucky Mountain Games managed to secure a publisher in the form of Curve Digital and will be aiming to release on home consoles and PC this spring. With said publisher came a name change to Hotshot Racing.

The re-announcement for the game came recently along with a trailer confirming that the game will be released on Steam for PC, as well as the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch thanks in part to Sumo Digital. The game will allow for up to eight players to race against one another in online multiplayer or go head-to-head in four-player offline local split-screen play.

Given the rarity of split-screen support in today’s games (especially AAA titles) it’s always a pleasure knowing that game studios are taking into consideration gamers who have friends that they invite over to play games. You can check out the trailer for Hotshot Racing below to get an idea of what the gameplay is like.

But the highlight of Hotshot Racing is that it not only brings back the classic low-poly fanfare from the 1990s that canvassed arcade machines the world around, but it’s that they’ve combined some of the neat features and modes from other popular games out at the time, such as Need For Speed.

For instance, the Pursuit Mode allows players to take on the role as the pursuer or the one being pursued. You can play as officers attempting to take down other players, with full vehicular destruction at play, or you can be the one racing around the track, dodging obstacles and avoiding your pursuers with some smooth moves in order to avoid being busted.

A bevy of modes and options coupled with a variety of different cars to choose from and 16 different racing circuits could easily prove to make Hotshot Racing the sleeper hit of the spring.

The game features eight different drivers along with unique modes such as Catch The Drift, where you have to drift in order to gain boosts in order to reach maximum speed.

There’s also a mode called Drive Or Explode, where each car has a bomb strapped to it and much like the movie Speed starring Keanu Reeves, if the vehicle drops below a certain speed it explodes.

There’s also a Time Trial so you can post your fastest laps, and a classic Grand Prix Mode. Every mode other than Time Trial is available in four-player split-screen and eight-player online modes.

They also boast that all the single-player modes maintain an uncompromising 60fps at all times. I’m not sure what the game runs like in the split-screen modes, but hopefully they can take some tips from Chase Horizon Turbo and ensure that both single and multiplayer modes run as clean and as pristine as possible.

You can actually see what some of the modes are like with a preview video that was uploaded by YouTuber noriyaro, which you can check out below.

I’m actually really excited about this game. It feels like a throwback to the Sega Saturn era of classics like Cruisin’ USA and Daytona USA or Virtua Racing; the low-poly fanfare that use to blare loudly in the seedy arcade rooms filled with popcorn droppings on the space blue carpet with the gold trims that always seemed to be painted intermittently with stale soda stains.

Anyway, you can wishlist Hotshot Racing right now over on the Steam store. The game is scheduled to release on home consoles and PC this spring.