Mario Kart meets Fall Guys in this silly racing battle royale which'll see up to 50 costumed penguins face off in the ultimate showdown

If you ever wondered what it'd look like if you combined Fall Guys with Mario Kart and turned everyone into a penguin, Faaast Penguin is your answer, and its frantic, silly racing action is coming to PC and consoles next month.

Faaast Penguin is, as the name suggests, about penguins going fast. Its reveal trailer was showcased during the Future Games Show at Gamescom Presented by Sid Meier's Civilization® VII, and it gave us our first look at the racing battle royale, which is being developed by Live A Live co-developer historia Inc. No doubt this is quite a departure from the HD-2D JRPG, but I'm certainly not saying no to a game that'll let me dress up a cartoon penguin in a funny costume before hurtling down a race course. 

Between 30 and 50 players can duke it out at the same time – competing in a 10-minute long tour made up of four races. As you make your way around the courses, you can speed yourself up by attacking fellow penguins, or by using a Big Ride, which appears to be a special ability that can give you a boost, a bit like a Bullet Bill in Mario Kart.

Like in Fall Guys, there are knockouts at each stage, which gradually reduce the number of competing penguins until the remaining few reach the final – whoever has the most points at the end is crowned the winner. The whole thing is also free to play – the devs say there are no pay-to-win elements involved, but you can expect different seasons – complete with their own season passes and ranks – as well as new skins and courses to be added over time (there'll be 16 courses to start with). 

Faaast Penguin is racing onto PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch sometime next month, and we'll also get the chance to put our skills to the test during an open beta running between September 7 and 8. At that point, we'll also be able to unlock some limited skins, seemingly including one with a very stylish blonde wig for your penguin, so that seems very important – don't miss