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. One of them is you.
"Win the road to Kinabalu and your debt is paid. Lose, and you are mine."Along, before the first race
Along is the loan shark everyone owes, you included. He calls before each chapter, and on the Kinabalu Summit Road he drives the last run himself. You never get a name or a face: you're the driver of the yellow Panda Kingz 2006, plate VKL 4821, and all you have left is the car.
The game opens with a short film of the race. Nine seconds in, your Kingz 2006 appears as a cyan hologram, built up from the road to the roof. It pulls away at the start still a hologram and turns solid when the film cuts to the low chase.
The race is called THE BOLT: sixteen stops from Kuala Lumpur to Kinabalu, played as you. Seven drivers owe Along too, and each waits for you at a chapter of their own, seventh-ranked first. Beat one in their duel and Along hands you their marker, the pink slip: their car and their driver are yours, and you hear what becomes of their wish. Beat Along at the summit and your debt is gone. Halfway there, eight stops in, the Sepang Circuit opens in BONUS; finish and Midnight Belum opens too.
Any chapter you've reached in King Mode, raced as you or as any rival whose pink slip you hold, with their own paint jobs. There are no calls and no story, just medals and leaderboards.
You and Helang also have a choice of car in Arcade. The CAR row on the ARCADE card swaps your Kingz 2006 for the Panda Kingz, and Helang's Positron Neo for the Positron Hero One. Press Y on a pad or C on the keyboard, or click the row. The car on the turntable, its livery and the race all follow your choice. King Mode and pile-ups always use the driver's own car.
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.
Traffic drives in groups of six to nine cars, with open road between them, so every lap has busy stretches and quiet ones. When a rival crashes into traffic just ahead of you, the game slows for a moment so you see it. There's no traffic on the Sepang Circuit, and pile-ups have their own junction traffic.
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 | B |
| Nitro | Shift | A 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 |
| Change livery (Arcade) | Q · E | LB · RB |
| Change car (Arcade, you and Helang) | C | Y |
| 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 |
You, then the seven, from #7 to #1, each with the chapter where they wait and what it takes to beat them. Every rival has a car of their own and different stats; once you hold their pink slip you can race as them in Arcade.
Somebody in Kuala Lumpur owes Along more than they can pay. Tonight the lights go out, the phone rings, and Along makes the offer he makes everyone. The yellow King is all you have left.
Wants Your debt to Along, cleared.
Stakes If you lose, Along owns you.
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.
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 fisherman's daughter from Seberang Takir who knows every bend of the coast road. 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.
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.
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 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.
Every car in every livery the game offers: yours, and each rival's once you hold their pink slip. Change the paint with LB and RB (Q and E) in Arcade, and for you and Helang the car with Y (C). The signature is there from the start; the rest unlock with medals, gold medals and finishing King Mode. Every car is an original creation for the game: any resemblance to a real make or model is coincidental.
The cars come from four makers, every one of them made up for the game. Each badges its cars front and back, and their ads share the roadside billboards with the films.
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 patrol route. The storm has closed the Penang Bridge to traffic.
13
Limestone walls, one road through them and no way out. Only half the field is left.
14
Borneo. Your car came over on the ferry, and so did a new rival.
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.
The main menu's BONUS screen has the extra races the story unlocks, and the COMPLETION card shows how much of the game you've finished.
The Formula One circuit next to KL International Airport in Sepang, Selangor. It's 5.55 km long, with fifteen corners and two long straights, and you race two laps against the seven rivals under floodlights at dusk. The grandstands stand between the two straights, facing the pit building and the race control tower. It unlocks when eight of King Mode's sixteen stops have a medal, and Along doesn't call before it.
You start from the grid on the main straight, under the start gantry. A closed circuit has no traffic, so your nitro comes from drifts, jumps and takedowns. The barriers carry the four car makers' advertising boards.
The back straight ends in a tight left-hander onto the main straight. The grandstand beside it faces both straights.
Your progress in three equal parts: King Mode's sixteen stops (a medal on each), the seven pink slips, and a gold medal on all eighteen races (the sixteen stops, Midnight Belum and Sepang). The last line shows whether the Sepang Circuit is open yet.
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, all from Petir Pictures, a studio that exists only in the game, and most of them starring the drivers. Between them, Panda and Takuya sell their cars.
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.
The yellow King comes straight at you down a neon street, headlights on, the city streaming past behind it.
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.