Introduction

Trailblazers arrives on the Switch like a neon paint bomb rolled through a high-speed racetrack. If you took Wipeout's need for speed, F-Zero's sense of momentum, and Splatoon s plot to cover stuff in colour, folded them into one racing blender and hit frappe, you'd get the basic idea. Developed by Supergonk, a small British studio whose team includes alumni from Codemasters, Bizarre Creations and Lionhead, Trailblazers tries to stand out in a crowded arcade-racer aisle by turning the track itself into your primary weapon. It s cooperative, it s competitive, and it s weirdly cheerful about colourful road vandalism. The Switch port landed on May 15, 2018, and gives you the option to blast through single-player content or drag friends into multiplayer chaos. Reviews have been, generously, mixed, but there s plenty here to like if you enjoy racing with a paintbrush strapped to your bumper.

Gameplay

Trailblazers is a high-speed racer with a gimmick that isn t just window dressing: your vehicle paints the track in your team's colour as you drive. Keeping your painted lanes intact is important because those streaks turn into boost pads for teammates. The more continuous paint you leave, the better the boost you create. It s essentially collaborative speedbuilding, which leads to the odd delightful moment where your team looks like a pride parade gone aerodynamic. There are eight selectable racers, each with their own feel, and races can be team-based with up to three racers per team. That team play is what gives Trailblazers its identity. Rather than purely hoarding power-ups or cutting corners like a sewer rat with a license, you re managing turf: paint your path, deny the enemy clean lanes, and time your boosts like a caffeine-fueled metronome. The tracks themselves lean toward the arcade end of the spectrum: loops, ramps, hairpin turns and platforming sections that reward route memorization and split-second timing. Controls are snappy and approachable, which is great because the game wants you focused on painting as much as steering. When it works, the flow is intoxicating - you and your teammates carve ribbons of colour that snake across futuristic arenas while your opponents curse into their controllers because their boost pads just got painted over. Trailblazers also offers both single-player and multiplayer modes, the former useful for learning the tracks and the latter where the paint-related chaos truly shines. That said, the concept can be a double-edged brush. Matches occasionally devolve into tile-hopping contests where you chase the best-painted lanes instead of racing for position, and coordination is essential: without a team that communicates or understands the boost-lane meta, you re more likely to be outpaced by a sloppy but aggressive opponent. Some critics also felt the game lacked a certain visceral energy; you can see that in moments when races feel less like heart-pounding sprints and more like polite, neon-coloured parades. Still, for anyone who enjoys cooperative mechanics baked into racing, Trailblazers offers a fresh twist that rewards both individual speed and teamplay strategy.

Graphics

Visually, Trailblazers is a treat for pupils and pupils of good taste. The aesthetics lean hard into cel-shaded, high-contrast visuals, which Shacknews likened to Borderlands, and that s a fair comparison: chunky outlines, bold colour palettes and environments that pop off the track. The switch version captures the colourful, comic-book vibe well enough to make you forgive some of the mechanical shortcomings. Tracks glow, paint looks deliciously bright, and the sense of speed is often conveyed through clever visual cues rather than just motion blur. It s graphic design that s happy to show off, which makes the act of painting the road feel satisfyingly tactile. On the downside, the Switch build doesn t get a full technical comparison in the source, so if you re expecting PC-level fidelity you might want to temper hopes. But in terms of style-versus-substance, Trailblazers errs on the side of style in a way that fits the game s identity: it s bold, a little cartoony, and unapologetically colourful. For players who respond to visuals as strongly as they respond to top speed, this is a big plus.

Conclusion

Trailblazers is an earnest little racing game with a bright coat of paint and a clever cooperative twist. Its idea of having vehicles paint boost lanes for teammates is simple, original and frequently satisfying, especially in multiplayer matches where coordination turns those painted lines into a symphony of nitro-fuelled chaos. The game's pedigree shows: Supergonk s team-made up of vets from Codemasters, Bizarre Creations and Lionhead-knows how to design tracks and controls that feel good, and that experience is evident in the core mechanics. However, the novelty doesn t entirely disguise the fact that Trailblazers can sometimes lack sustained energy. Critics have pointed out moments where the races feel less urgent than they should, and the meta of chasing painted lanes can occasionally tip matches from exhilarating to mildly frustrating. Aggregate reception was mixed, so temper enthusiasm if you re after a flawless arcade racer. For Switch owners who want a colourful, cooperative twist on high-speed racing and don t mind a few rough edges, Trailblazers is worth a rent or sale on a family game night. For purists chasing raw, relentless speed, it may leave you wishing for a little more bite under the hood. Score: 6.5 out of 10 - fun and inventive, but not always electric.

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