Super Highway Rampage Remaster Promises a Wilder Ride—But Is It a True Upgrade for Roguelike Fans?

Why Super Highway Rampage’s Remaster Actually Deserves Attention

When Lasso Games dropped their roguelike car combat game Highway Rampage in 2023, it quietly won over a niche audience-think Mad Max meets Enter the Gungeon, with all the frantic chaos that implies. Now, with “Super Highway Rampage” hitting PC on September 1, 2025, the indie studio promises not just an update, but a full-on remaster stacked with new features, better performance, and heaps more content. As someone who’s clocked far too many hours restarting runs in the original, this announcement punches above the usual ‘game of the year edition’ fare, but I can’t help but ask: is this remaster genuinely for the diehards, or just a slick way to repackage what worked before?

• New gameplay mechanics and driver abilities aim to deepen strategy, not just add fluff.
• Extensive bugs and performance issues from the original are supposedly ironed out-crucial for a fast-paced roguelike.
• The addition of a new soundtrack and ending cinematics by Bad Guys Get Dead points to a more immersive vibe.
• A sprawling, multi-path wasteland map gives hope for replay value, but will it be enough to keep even veterans hooked?

Breakdown: What’s Actually New?

First, the good stuff-a remaster that leans into what made Highway Rampage fun without just throwing more superficial content at the wall. The roster now boasts 24 unlockable drivers, each presumably with their own twist on mobility and combat. From muscle cars to tanks (and even UFOs?), I’m hoping this isn’t just a cosmetic gimmick, but a genuine reason to experiment with new playstyles. The enemy and weapon variety is another headline feature: over 40 base weapon types, each upgradable along two separate evolutionary trees. This kind of customization is what gets the PvE crowd salivating, especially in a genre that too often limits you to a tricked-out shotgun and a coin flip for upgrades.

The big concern I had with the original was jank—laggy hitboxes, odd physics, and a control scheme that felt a touch too loose during frantic firefights. Lasso Games swears that the remaster is “snappier,” with better performance, less input lag, and a juice-up on visual feedback (“game juice,” as they put it). If those improvements are for real, this could finally scratch the super-responsive itch that stuff like Nuclear Throne sets as the gold standard.

Industry Context: Why Now, and Who Is This Really For?

Lasso Games might not be a household name, but their design ethos—quick, replayable, and punishing—has drawn comparisons to the likes of Hades and FTL from the Steam community. In 2024 there was a glut of ‘roguelite-adjacent’ car games that promised variety but delivered boredom. Super Highway Rampage feels like it’s trying to reclaim that road-tripping, risk/reward thrill, especially with its branching maps and garage-based weapon upgrades. That’s meaningful if you hated the original’s tendency to devolve into repetitive grind; if they nail this, replayability won’t just be a bullet point, but the reason you keep coming back.

There’s also clear recognition that music and atmosphere matter more now than ever. Roguelikes live or die on flowstate, and the original’s soundtrack was, frankly, background noise. With Bad Guys Get Dead on board, I’m legitimately curious to see if the remaster’s audio helps sell ‘apocalyptic road trip’ vibes—or just blends into the white noise of post-punk chiptune that so many throw at the genre.

The Gamer’s Take: What’s Hype vs. Substance?

Here’s where I keep my expectations in check. On paper, Super Highway Rampage’s upgrades hit every gamer wishlist item—polished performance, more content, deeper systems. But we’ve all seen indie ‘remasters’ that patch in a few extra guns and call it a day. Will the branching paths and driver perks actually make for new strategies, or will it boil down to picking the optimal meta combo and never deviating? The new ending cinematics are a nice touch, but in roguelikes, it’s the adventure between start and finish that writes the real story.

As someone who’s tired of ‘AAA remaster’ cynicism, I’m rooting for Lasso Games to deliver a remaster that’s more than a technical facelift. The fact that they’re focusing so much on tuning core mechanics, rather than just inflating numbers, suggests they actually listened to fan feedback—and aren’t afraid to rebuild a game that already had cult status among car combat weirdos. If they stick the landing, Super Highway Rampage could become the new standard for what a roguelike remaster should look like.

TL;DR

Lasso Games is taking another swing at Highway Rampage with a genuine gameplay-focused remaster. The new features and fixes look legit—but the real test is whether these upgrades create new reasons to keep hitting “new run.” Fans of the genre should keep this on their radar, but don’t buy the hype until the rubber actually hits the road.