An arcade takedown racer that runs from Kuala Lumpur to the foot of Kinabalu, one city a night. It comes to Steam in Early Access in the first quarter of 2027, on Windows and macOS, and plays with a keyboard or a gamepad.
Once every monsoon, the lights in sixteen cities go out for one second. In that second, sixteen drivers get a phone call. "Win THE BOLT, from Kuala Lumpur to the foot of Kinabalu, and your debt to me is paid. I will even grant you one wish. Anything at all." "Lose, and I own you." Every one of them owes him money. No one has ever turned him down, and no one has ever read the fine print.
"Win, and your debt is paid and it is yours. Lose, and you are mine."Along, before the first race
Along is the loan shark every driver owes. He's the Ah Long who took Bengkel Kilat from Razif's father. He calls before each chapter, and on the Kinabalu Summit Road he drives the last run himself. He keeps his word to the letter, which is rarely what the winner meant. Each driver has two endings, one for winning and one for losing.
The race is called THE BOLT. You play it in King Mode: sixteen stops from Kuala Lumpur to Kinabalu. Finish it and a bonus chapter opens, Midnight Belum.
First across the line. Rivals ram, and you ram back.
Road rage: hit the takedown target before your car is wrecked.
Launch into a live junction and cause the most damage in ringgit.
One lap on the clock. Drive into oncoming traffic to fill your nitro.
The last run. Only one car arrives.
You fill the nitro meter by driving badly on purpose. Burn it to catch the pack. String several moves together and your chain multiplier climbs.
Play with a keyboard or a gamepad. The on-screen prompts follow whichever you touched last: keys, Xbox-style buttons (Steam Deck, Xbox, most PC pads) or PlayStation's ✕ ○ □ △. Rebind the keyboard in Settings.
| Action | Keyboard | Gamepad (Xbox names) |
|---|---|---|
| Throttle | W / ↑ | RT |
| Brake / reverse | S / ↓ | LT |
| Steer | A D / ← → | Left stick |
| Handbrake (drift) · PETIR | Space | A |
| Nitro | Shift | B or RB |
| Reset car | R | Y |
| Camera: close · far | C | View or R3 |
| Pause | Esc | Menu |
| BOLT FM: mute · next song | M · N | D-pad ↓ · D-pad → |
| Menus: move · go · back | Arrows · Enter · Esc | D-pad or stick · A · B |
| Photo mode (in a race or a pile-up) | P | D-pad ↑ |
| Photo: orbit · move · zoom | WASD or drag · arrows · R F or wheel | Left stick · right stick · LT RT |
| Photo: roll · lens · look · focus | Q E · Z X · Tab · T | LB RB · D-pad ← → · Y · X |
| Photo: take · back | Space · Esc | A · B |
Choose who you race as on the Drivers screen. Each driver has a car of their own, different stats and a few paint jobs to unlock.
Night courier who knows every lorong between Chow Kit and Bukit Bintang by the sound of his tyres. He learned to drive in his late father's workshop, Bengkel Kilat. Along took the shop, and Razif has run debts ever since.
Wants Buy back Bengkel Kilat, free and clear, with his father's name back over the door.
Stakes If he loses, the loan passes to his little sister Aina, who is fifteen.
Ex-traffic police, pursuit division. Three years ago she was framed for a cargo heist on the Penang Bridge and vanished. She races with the lights off, which is why they call her Hantu.
Wants The name of the officer who framed her, and proof that will stand up in court.
Stakes She races under an open warrant. One arrest and she never walks free again.
The best engine builder north of Rawang. Ten years ago he and his best friend Wei Jie raced the Karak descent in the rain, and only Arjun came home. He hasn't raced since.
Wants Undo one night on the Karak Highway.
Stakes He swore to Wei Jie's widow he would never race again. She will know.
A fisherman's daughter from Seberang Takir who drives the coast road like it owes her money. Her father's boat, the Seri Bayu, went out before the monsoon and never came back, and she named the car after it.
Wants Bring her father home from the South China Sea.
Stakes She mortgaged the family kedai runcit to buy in. Lose and her mother loses the shop.
A tycoon who once built half of Precinct 4, until he was indicted on nine counts. The armoured sedan is the only asset the court forgot to freeze.
Wants His empire back, and ruin for every witness who testified against him.
Stakes He is out on bail. The verdict is due the morning after the finale.
A timber-road hauler from the Borneo interior, built like his truck and just as hard to stop. He says he doesn't want a wish. He wants to know who Along is.
Wants Nothing. He wants to pull off Along's mask with his own hands.
Stakes The last driver who asked that question was found in the Sarawak River.
The fastest junior the Borneo rally scene ever produced, raised on the switchbacks below Kinabalu. A works team signed her, put her face on every billboard from Kota Kinabalu to Kuching, and dropped her the week her knee gave out. She rebuilt the old test car they left to rust and taught herself to drive through the pain.
Wants A new knee, and one more season in the championship that forgot her.
Stakes Her surgeon says one more hard crash and she will never walk again.
One stop in every Malaysian state and federal territory, then the bonus. All of them are raced after seven in the evening, from the last of the sun to well past midnight.
01
The lights go out at midnight. When they come back, sixteen cars are idling on Jalan Bukit Bintang and the call is still ringing in your ear.
02
Along has put a bounty on the slowest car. Every rival on the Federal Highway is hunting someone, and tonight that someone is you.
03
Government convoys, four lanes of them, all at a red light. "Make it expensive," the voice says.
04
The first elimination. Two drivers didn't make Seremban, and nobody says what happened to them.
05
Trishaws, tour buses and a lorry full of dodol. The old town has never seen a night like this.
06
The checkpoint closes at dawn. Anyone still on the Causeway when the sun comes up is out.
07
Empty expressway, full moon, two hundred kilometres of oncoming lorries. Fill the nitro the dangerous way.
08
The Jambatan Angkat is opening for the fishing fleet. Jump the gap or go into the Terengganu River.
09
The rivals have teamed up against the leader. That's you, and there are four of them.
10
Six kilometres dead straight between the paddy fields, and the fog is down to a car length.
11
Six roads feed one roundabout. Along wants a new record, and he pays in nitro.
12
Hantu's old beat. The storm has closed the bridge, but not to you.
13
Limestone walls, one road through them and no way out. Only half the field is left.
14
Borneo. The ferry brought your car over, and it brought over something that wasn't in the field before.
15
Stacked shipping containers, a fuel depot and a harbour crane. The biggest pile-up of the run.
16
Along drives the last run himself. Win, and your debt is cleared and your wish is granted at the summit, word for word.
B
After the wish, one more call. An old road through the rainforest, no lamps, no town. Only your headlights, and the fireflies.
Things worth a look, if you can spare one at 200 km/h.
Once each race, while you cross the channel, a Petir Air jumbo comes over on its approach to Bayan Lepas, wheels down and landing lights on.
Three 150 m turbines stand in the paddy where the straight begins. You see them from a long way off, and they keep getting bigger.
Green signs for expressways and blue ones for town roads, each pointing to real places near that chapter.
The billboards advertise this week's films. They all come from Petir Pictures, a studio that exists only in the game, and most of them star the drivers.
An old logging road through the rainforest, with no street lamps at all. You only see what your headlights reach, and the fireflies.
Straits and Art Deco terraces with canvas awnings over the five-foot way. Towers rise behind them, their windows lit.
Tall galvanised lamp columns line both sides of the road and light up the wet tarmac.
Your driver's car comes straight at you down a neon street, headlights on.
BOLT FM plays over the menus and in the races (switch it off in Settings). DJ Guruh keeps the city talking between songs. The station's own songs are the game's; the rest of the rotation is Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 4.0.
There are 30 Steam achievements. 9 of them are story spoilers, so they stay hidden until you earn them.