Screamer launched March 26 and brought a unique blend of arcade racing and anime-inspired storytelling. It was a complete departure from the original Screamer which came out in 1995 and was a pretty standard, though unique in its own right, among other arcade racers of the time. I don't think a lot of people knew what to make of this change.
An arcade racing game that wasn't Forza Horizon, an IP that hadn't been seen in basically 21 years, a huge departure from the original, and wildly different controls with its twin-stick drifting mechanics. It seemed a lot of people loved it or hated it. I enjoyed it.
A little over six months later, I was able to get a quick interview with Screamer's Game Director, Federico Cardini, about how Milestone feels about Screamer and what's next for the melodramatic racing game.
Anthony, GamingTrend: It's been six months since Screamer launched and Milestone has continued to patch and improve every part of the game. What's been the biggest lesson the team has learned in maintaining an arcade racing game in 2026?
Frederico Cardini, Game Director for Screamer: I wouldn’t say that we learned it, but we’ve surely had a nice reminder that community feedback is invaluable when developing something new. Screamer has a lot of unique things compared to other racing games, and it’s been a pleasure to tweak and improve what we could following player’s feedback.
Anthony: What have been some of the changes Milestone has made to Screamer?
Frederico: There’s been quite a few! Some highlights are the rebalancing on various characters, a special case of this being Aisha getting quite the power up to her ability; it now gives her a free shield multiple times during a race instead of just once. We’ve also reviewed some dialogues a bit to make them more pleasant to
read and added steering wheel support to the game. But the most important
addition that we’ve done is in the latest patch is the Single Stick controls,
which offer a more familiar control scheme to players that want to get more
comfortable with the game before trying out the Twin Stick mode.
Anthony: How does the team go about implementing feedback in a game with very diverse and distinctive driving styles as well as individual player styles?
Frederico: With each feedback we receive, there’s a lot of discussion behind the scenes to determine if implementing it is something that’s in line with the game’s
experience and ends up improving it instead of creating new issues. The data we
gather from the game plays a huge part in this: if the feedback we receive aligns
with the data we have (for example, character strength) then that brings that
feedback on top of our priority list.
Anthony: One of the things I've praised Screamer for is that it doesn't have a battle pass or other kinds of harsh FOMO. What led to that approach in an era of battle passes?
Frederico: Well, frankly, because as developers we don’t really like those kinds of systems. We wanted to create a game that respected players' time and only asked you to interact with it if you have fun, and battle passes or similar mechanics are not really designed with that in mind.
Anthony: Six months in, what has most surprised you about how players are enjoying the game?
Frederico: We really enjoyed seeing how players reacted to the story and elevated some unexpected characters to fan favorite (Dirk, anyone?). When you create such a diverse cast, it’s hard to predict how people will react, but the reception has been
so positive that it was a real surprise!
Anthony: Which team do players tend to choose the most?
Frederico: The Green Reapers are surely one of the most appreciated teams, followed closely by Strike Force Romanda and Kagawa-kai. I’m talking about a mix of offline and online here and to be fair, the overall usage is well distributed among
all characters!
Anthony: What can players expect for the future of Screamer as a game and as a franchise?
Frederico: Well, I can’t really spoil anything unfortunately, but we do have some cool things planned so stay tuned!
Stick with GamingTrend for future Screamer news!
