Lanesplit review: Road to nowhere

There’s something oddly calming about watching YouTube videos from behind the passenger seat of a car, looking out into the world beyond, while soothing music plays in the background. There’s a feeling of tranquility, of progress, while in complete safety. The world is moving, but you don’t have to. 

Lanesplit taps into that feeling, though the main goal is to go fast and avoid traffic. It’s just a shame it’s not ready for launch; a lack of content and structure, as well as a litany of bugs, have ruined what might have been an exceptional racing experience. 

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The Escapist recaps

• Lanesplit is a racing sim that rewards the player for going fast and narrowly avoiding other vehicles.
• Lanesplit leaves Steam Early Access on January 28, 2026.
• Lanesplit has three cities/stages at launch: Sendai Loop, Grimsel Spiral, and Atlantic City.
• There are single-player and multiplayer race options at launch. 

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Racing the endless lanes

Lanesplit is a motorcycle racing sim in which the player drives around one of three tracks, narrowly avoiding traffic to earn points. You can get off the bike when it’s not in motion and walk around the city, but there’s little to interact with outside of your vehicle. 

There is no set racing structure in Lanesplit. The goal of the game is to rack up points, which you can then use to unlock new vehicles with different controls. You can toggle traffic levels in your run, including removing it entirely in “Zen” mode for those who just want to drive around the city and listen to music. 

Lanesplit has an excellent soundtrack, composed of breakcore beats that help take you out of reality and immerse you in its world. Those who want that calming experience I spoke of in the intro can do so in Lanesplit, but with a touch of interaction to connect you to the game. 

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the points part of the game, where you race through traffic. This is at its most fun when the number of cars is cranked up to its highest number, as zipping through the oncoming cars is a lot of fun when it’s pushing your skills to the max. 

The visuals in Lanesplit are gorgeous, especially when cranked up to the highest settings. While the other cars you see are nothing to write home about, the landscapes, buildings, lighting, skybox, and reflections are all top-notch. The fact that Lanesplit is a solo-developed game makes this even more impressive. 

A broken road with holes in the walls

The biggest issue with Lanesplit is its bugs. While the game runs at high frame rates with little slowdown or problems, there are tons of visual quirks and, more importantly, collision detection issues that ruin the experience. 

The collision problems are at their worst in the Grimsel Spiral stage. There’s a large section of track on the countryside road, where there’s only a slim metal barrier keeping you away from the snowy hills beyond. Turns out, that barrier still needs a little work. As seen in the screenshot above, I kept clipping out beyond it when racing, going into the hills beyond, racing towards the Aurora Borealis in the distance. 

For just a brief moment. I thought I’d wandered into a horror game, something akin to Doki Doki Literature Club, because I kept hitting the barricade whenever I attempted this stage, and kept going into the winter wonderland. Was this all some kind of obfuscated horror-gaming experience, where delving into the skybox and the facsimile of the world on the horizon was played for scares? No: Lanesplit just has a lot of glitches that still need to be resolved before it’s ready for launch. 

While the buildings look impressive from afar, when you get close to them on foot, the lighting and reflections start to glitch out. There are also issues with textures not loading entirely, as was the case with the entire floor of this garage. 

Now the details of the town aren’t as great a problem as the collision. After all, this isn’t Grand Theft Auto. The goal of the game isn’t to explore the city; it’s to race around it. It’s just a symptom of the bigger issue, as Lanesplit has plenty of visual hiccups that spoil the experience.

It’s hard to be too mad at Lanesplit. After all, it’s a solo-developed game, so the resources for getting the game out the door are likely limited. I also can’t leave the problems ignored in a review, and it’s something people need to be aware of before putting down cash. 

1% of a much bigger game

I’m a big fan of the zen-like Dad games, the kind where there’s a basic task that you can complete while listening to a podcast or a five-hour-long YouTube World War 2 Iceberg video. PowerWash Simulator 2 is basically my heroin. 

Lanesplit works best when it fits into that category. I enjoyed idly racing through the streets and listening to the music. The core gameplay loop, where you raced and avoided cars, was a lot more boring. After a few minutes, I was done. It’s the kind of thing you like doing for a bit of fun in a Cyberpunk 2077 or Grand Theft Auto, before moving on to something more substantive, but in the case of Lanesplit, it’s the main reason you boot up the game. 

Lanesplit still needs work on the technical front, but when the bigger issues are sorted, it’ll be fun as a casual experience, the kind you jump to when you want to unwind. The actual driving between lanes part is the one that wears out its welcome the quickest, which is a shame, as with a little more structure, it could be something special. 

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