The 9 Best Android Racing Games of 2026
The best Android racing games cover more ground than the genre name suggests. One of the nine below is a drag racer with no steering, another is a rally career with no rivals on the track, and one runs in a browser…
The best Android racing games cover more ground than the genre name suggests. One of the nine below is a drag racer with no steering, another is a rally career with no rivals on the track, and one runs in a browser instead of as an app. Several arrived on Android after launching elsewhere. What they share is that each can be played on a phone, and they are counted down here from nine to one.
9. Colin McRae Rally
Colin McRae Rally is a premium rally game with a career mode in which each tournament win unlocks a car for the next tier. Players steer by tilting the device or with on-screen arrows, with the gas on the right, the brakes on the left and a handbrake for slides. Races have no rivals on the track, and times are ranked against virtual racers after each course. The reviewer scored it 3.5 out of 5, praising the career mode and the repair system while faulting the traction and physics.
Codemasters brought the game to Android after it had launched on iOS the year before, with Thumbstar Games as the developer. It launched at $ 4.99 with 30 rally stages covering more than 130 km, and cars including the Subaru Impreza and the Lancia Stratos.
8. Smashy Road: Wanted 2
Bearbit Studio’s Smashy Road: Wanted 2 borrows the Wanted meter from Grand Theft Auto. Each round starts mid-chase on a highway with police pursuing, and the reviewer found no goal beyond staying uncaught. The landscape is procedurally generated, and the controls are taps on the left or right side of the screen. If the car sinks in a lake, the driver swims ashore and looks for another vehicle.
Survival time earns money for better cars, and frequent prompts offering cash in exchange for watching ads annoyed the reviewer, who still enjoyed the free game despite finding it repetitive.
7. Horizon Chase
Horizon Chase came from Aquiris Game Studio and was already live on Google Play by November 2015. It takes its cues from racing games of the 8- and 16-bit era, with a low-poly take on 16-bit visuals. Players choose a car, race in cups on tracks around the world, and upgrade or replace their cars as they go.
The soundtrack is by Barry Leitch, who is known for Turbo Challenge 2, Rush and the SNES version of Top Gear. The announcement lists 32 cities, 73 tracks and seven input methods, including Bluetooth controllers and the accelerometer.
6. GRID Autosport
Feral Interactive developed the Android version of GRID Autosport, which arrived in late November 2019, almost two years after the iOS release in 2017. It launched at $ 9.99, paid once for the full game with no small in-game purchases, and it requires Android 9.0 or later.
The career casts the player as a novice driver working through five disciplines, which are street, tuner, touring, endurance and open wheel, with sponsor and team offers along the way.
5. PolyTrack
PolyTrack is the only entry here played in a browser. On Poki, PolyTrack runs on desktop, phone and tablet, with on-screen pedals for touch controls and 17 official tracks plus more than 30 community creations. Kodub built it as a time-trial racer inspired by Trackmania. Players chase their own best times rather than rival cars and use leaderboards and ghost runs to see where faster drivers gained time.
4. Hill Climb Racing 2
Fingersoft, an indie studio in Oulu, Finland, released Hill Climb Racing 2 in November 2016, and the game passed 40 million downloads in under two months. It also reached the top of the racing category in 121 countries. What’s more, it averaged 4.6 stars on Google Play across more than a million reviews.
The game’s asynchronous online multiplayer comes with leaderboards for world-best race times and challenges against friends.
3. Real Racing 3
EA’s Real Racing 3 reached Google Play on February 28, 2013, and the install needed about 1.7GB of free storage.
Its Time Shifted Multiplayer lets a player race friends’ times. And you can compete online or offline, on licensed vehicles and real-world circuits.
2. CSR Racing 2
NaturalMotion, the Zynga-owned studio behind CSR Racing 2, launched it globally on June 30, 2016, after a soft launch in select regions the month before. CSR is free to install and uses in-app purchases for upgrades. Its predecessor reached 190 million downloads across platforms.
It is a drag racing game with no steering. Players instead work a shift stick and a nitrous switch and use a speed meter to time their shifts. Customization covers cosmetics and under-the-hood parts across 50 licensed cars.
1. Asphalt Legends
Gameloft launched Asphalt 9: Legends in July 2018 with nearly 50 super and hypercars, including the Bugatti Chiron, the McLaren P1 and the Lamborghini Terzo Millennio, which was exclusive to the game. Touchdrive offers an alternative control scheme.
Ranked races take up to eight players across five leagues. Legends also offers leaderboards, and players can join clubs of up to 20 members to pool points for rewards.
Google Play now lists the game as Asphalt Legends, developed by Gameloft SE.
Enjoyed the list? For slower play, the 20 best Android strategy games are next.
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