I went into Drag x Drive with a raised eyebrow. The reveal trailer’s industrial vibe looked more “cold factory demo” than “pick-up hoops,” and the pitch-3v3 wheelchair basketball with trick systems-sounded like a lot to balance. Then I spent a dozen hours with it across a press session and the Global Jam window, and the game did something I didn’t expect: it made my hands and brain believe in its fiction. The Joy-Con 2 “push” control clicked, the chair felt like an extension of my intent, and for stretches of three-minute matches I forgot I was testing a brand-new input gimmick and just hooped.
That moment happened around hour two. I was playing in a public park match, down 10.7 to 10.9 with the shot clock bleeding. I spun onto one wheel, popped a small hop over a pipe lip, and threaded a pass with L+R as I landed. My pivot teammate sealed, I rolled into the arc, caught the dish, and fired while still in the tail end of a spin. The trick multiplier added 0.2 to the bucket-enough to swing it. We won by 0.0-something. I didn’t know that was a feeling I needed in my life, but here we are.
The core idea is immediately cool: you slide the Joy-Con 2 as if you’re pushing the chair’s wheels. Small, alternating movements build speed; uneven pushes create veer; hard, short pushes give you those quick stutters for fakes. It’s part motion, part rhythm, and unlike any stick-based skating or driving model I’ve used. The first 20 minutes in the mandatory tutorial had me oversteering into pipes and tapping jump at the worst times. By the end of that hour, I started thinking in pushes rather than in “left stick to move.” That’s the “aha.”
There’s a simple park hub—two enclosed courts, wide industrial lanes, rails and pipes knitting it together—that doubles as the single-player playground. It looks, intentionally, like a repurposed shipping yard, battered steel and painted lines. I didn’t love it at first, but I get why they chose it: no clutter, clear silhouettes, and a harsh, mechanical identity. It’s the opposite of cozy. It’s a space that tells you, “earn it.”
Drag x Drive’s matches are short—three minutes—and dense. Classic 2-point inside, 3-point outside, 14-second possession clock to keep things honest. You choose an archetype: a fast-but-fragile guard, a balanced wing, or a heavy pivot that holds ground like a parked truck. Teams aren’t forced into the holy trinity, so yes, you’ll sometimes queue into triple-pivot doom squads or a trio of paper-thin guards that live and die by pace.
Passing is snappy—L+R together, with a semi-automatic assist toward the best recipient if you’ve got your chair aimed well. Defense leans on momentum and contact. Cut someone off chest-to-chest and you can dislodge possession. Raise your arms to contest, and if you pop onto one wheel and raise, your vertical contest gets surprisingly mean. Getting good at those little frames is the difference between watching floats drop and eating them for breakfast.
And then there are the tricks. This is the secret sauce. Dunking with enough runway, spinning in air, even pulling a cheeky backflip—these tack on fractional points to made baskets. 0.1, 0.2, up to 0.3 if you line it all up. It sounds tiny; it’s not. In a tight game, one 0.2 swing is decisive. The trick system forces you to plan your approach and your angle. I learned to set a pick as a pivot, peel out into a one-wheel hop, and either dish or go for the mini-style bonus if the lane looked free. The rhythm becomes: earn space, apply flavor without losing the fundamentals.
Mechanically, this is where Drag x Drive impressed me most. After three hours, I had muscle memory for spinning on the spot, for braking with uneven pushes, for feathering enough speed to not overshoot an arc cut. It’s expressive. It also made my forearms sing after long sessions. That’s not a complaint; it’s just true. The input model is physical. If you love motion games that reward effort—think of the first time Wii Sports tennis clicked—you’ll be right at home.
Here’s where the balloon deflates. The single-player content is basically an extended tutorial spread across a challenge list and a bot ladder. You roam the park, take on timed slaloms, trick checklists in pipes, zone activations, speed runs to a marked area, sequences of made shots, even a slightly silly jump-rope mini challenge. They start tougher than you’d expect, and the difficulty tags (1-3) mean less than you think at first. But once the controls settle in, you’ll chew through the set pretty fast. I had most of the trophies done by the end of my second evening.
Bot matches? There are ten, escalating in difficulty, and they’re a fine crucible to sharpen timing and positioning. I knocked them out in an hour and change and never felt the pull to run them back. There’s no solo tournament, no bracket with flavor text, no ladder with named legends. Drag x Drive is screaming for a little pageantry here—a single-player cup with eccentric NPC squads, a reward item tied to each bracket boss, anything to make the grind personal. As shipped, the solo suite teaches you the dance and ushers you out the door.
Customization softens the blow slightly. You can swap helmet models, recolor frames, wheels, pads, and tweak textures for different finishes. It’s fun, and I enjoyed rolling up as a matte-black pivot with neon spokes. But the unlocks come quickly, and once you find your look, there’s not a lot more to chase offline.
So, you go where the game clearly wants you: online. Public parks let you drop into the world with whoever’s queued; private parks give you codes, friend joins, and control over the vibe. That frictionless flow from hub to court is a win. You can be in a match, back out, watch a team run a mini-scrim on the other court, and jump right back in without screens stacking up. I rarely waited more than a minute for a 3v3; when the population dipped, it gracefully fell back to 2v2.
And when it hums, Drag x Drive cooks. One match sticks with me: we queued into a triple-pivot squad. On paper, they should have stonewalled us. Instead, my guard partner and I attacked their corners with speed—tiny alternating pushes, hard cuts to pull them wide—while our pivot ran interference like a moving wall. Every made bucket had a little flavor: a micro spin into a 2-pointer for 2.1, a one-wheel gather into a corner three for 3.2. They adjusted late and we scraped it out by 0.4. I didn’t even remember to hit the emote wheel after; my hands were busy shaking.
Speaking of emotes, the game adds a sprinkle of humanity with text emotes and quick high-fives when you roll close to a teammate. It hits that “we’re in this together” beat that a lot of online sports titles miss. Between matches, you’ll sometimes be offered mini-games—a point A to B race, or a chase-the-wild-ball romp across the park. You can opt out in settings if you only want pure hoops. I toggled them off after a while; they’re a cute cool-down, not the core loop.
Here’s the part that frustrated me all weekend: Drag x Drive has the bones of a fantastic competitive game but doesn’t give you the scaffolding to express it. There’s no in-game tournament mode, no ability to spin up a bracket with three or four teams for a night with friends, no seasonal ladder to grind. The matchmaker gets you into fun rounds quickly, and then you’re just… repeating discrete matches. It’s fine for a drop-in session; it’s limp for a community night.
I kept picturing the kind of Saturday I want from this game: eight players in a private park, two spectators, a best-of-three semifinal into a final, cosmetic rewards for the winners, maybe a “legendary” chair part to flex for a week. The mechanics are already competitive—positional synergy, trick risk/reward, collision fundamentals—so the absence of tournament modes feels like leaving money on the table. Maybe this comes later. The game practically begs for it.
On my Switch 2 sessions, matches felt smooth and responsive almost all the time. The push-to-roll input is sensitive to rhythm, and any latency would kill the magic; it held up, even in public parks with six players buzzing. I noticed the tiniest hitch during one Global Jam session when the hub looked crowded, but it didn’t carry into the court. Subjectively, the game reads as brisk and stable in motion, which matters a lot when you’re chaining a spin into a jump into a catch-and-release three.
Audio sells the weight of the chair: bearings hum, casters tick across seams, and the rim clang has that sharp garage echo. The soundtrack leans aggressive and mechanical—again with that industrial thesis—which won’t be everyone’s mood, but it’s coherent. Visually, the park is legible above all else. I miss a bit of warmth, but there’s a clarity to its lines that makes play readable even at maximum scramble.
A few things that made me better, hour by hour:
Also: expect to get tired. After an hour straight, my pushes got messy and my tricks got greedy. This is one of those rare online games that rewards taking a water break.
If you love team-first games where fundamentals and flair coexist—think somewhere between NBA Jam (for pace) and Rocket League (for emergent teamwork)—Drag x Drive is right up your alley. It’s also a standout if you’re curious about new input paradigms; the Joy-Con 2 pushing makes a strong case that motion still has unexplored, satisfying spaces.
If you mostly play solo sports campaigns, this isn’t for you yet. The single-player layer won’t hold you. If your group lives for weekend tournaments or running house rules, you’ll have fun, but you’ll also feel the absence of built-in brackets and leagues. You can fake it with private lobbies and honor systems; the game just doesn’t meet you halfway.
At 19.99 euros, the value cut is pretty clear. You’re paying for an inventive control model, a feisty online loop, and a thin solo wrapper. If that equation sounds fair, you’ll get your money’s worth quickly. If you need modes on modes or cosmetics as a lasting progression carrot, you may want to wait and see if post-launch updates build out the scaffolding.
By hour ten, Drag x Drive had earned my respect. It’s rare for a sports game to invent a new feel and have it land this cleanly. The way the chair responds to push rhythm, the way tricks nudge the scoreboard, the way roles nudge you into chemistry—it all sings. I had moments of real, goofy joy stealing a ball with a chest-to-chest stop, or drifting a soft arc into a 3.1. And I had equal moments of annoyance at the menu wall that says, “No tournament for you.”
I can’t shake the sense that the designers built a race car, parked it in a tiny industrial lot, and handed us the keys. The first gear is wonderful. I just want the open road, the bracket, the season, the mythmaking. Until then, Drag x Drive is a great pick-up-and-play online sport that deserves a slot on your Switch 2, with an asterisk: it’s a foundation, not a full arena.
Rating: 7.5/10
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