Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Racing has always belonged on a couch, and I've put plenty of hours into Forza and Gran Turismo, but those are sim-leaning experiences that ask a lot of a casual guest. Crash Team Racing isn't that. Four-player split-screen, karts, weapons, tracks that don't punish you for taking a corner wrong, and everyone at the table has a shot at winning regardless of skill. The battle mode alone is worth a full evening if racing itself gets old. It's an older game getting by on a solid remaster rather than new ideas, and the roster leans heavily on nostalgia for people who grew up with the original. For a group that wants chaos over precision, it beats the sim racers every time.

The list needed a kart racer and Crash Team Racing is the strongest one currently available on PlayStation for four-player split-screen. It plays faster and more technically than most kart games, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your group. It runs via backward compatibility rather than as a native PS5 title, which cost it some points on polish, but the local racing itself holds up well. If your household has been waiting for a proper kart racer on PS5 and does not own a Switch, this is currently the best answer available.

CTR looks like a kids' game and then humiliates you on the first real circuit. The boost-chaining system rewards practice in a way that most kart racers deliberately avoid, and the shortcuts are genuinely worth learning rather than decorative. My kids can play it and enjoy it at one level while I am optimizing reserve boosts at another. That range across skill levels is rare. Online remains active as of mid-2026, which matters on a game this age. If you want a kart racer with real mechanical depth underneath the cartoon presentation, this is the pick.