Warhammer 40K: Speed Freeks is officially exiting early access and will have its 1.0 launch next week on May 22, 2025, developer Caged Element and publisher Wired Productions have announced.
It’s launching as a structurally very different game than what it was. We first knew Warhammer 40K: Speed Freeks as a free-to-play combat racing game where you play as Orks in the Warhammer universe who want nothing more than to smash each other to bits, going at crazy speeds and racing cars with guns on them.
Now, it’s still a combat racing game with the Orks and the aforementioned craziness, but it’s no longer free-to-play. It’ll also be published by Wired Productions, and not Plaion, as was previously the case.
If you jumped into the free-to-play early access version, you won’t need to buy the game now that it’ll be a premium release. A press release for Speed Freeks’ launch has confirmed that players who were among the 250K people already playing Speed Freeks will be upgraded to the premium version for free.
All the microtransactions that were in the free-to-play version of the game will also be removed, and if you did purchase or earn any of the premium currency that existed in the free-to-play version, then you’ll still be able to spend that for the next 12 months. For everyone else who didn’t jump into the early access version, it’ll launch at $15.99 USD.
The move to a premium game also means that the 1.0 version of the game will support player-hosted matches, private games, and have a free roam mode for players to explore the maps and create their own custom races.
“We set out to make the Orkiest of Warhammer 40,000 games, and through our early access period we’ve had thousands of people help us achieve that goal,” game director on Warhamemr 40K: Speed Freeks, Chris Mallinson said in a press release.
“Along with our previous publisher PLAION. Now with Wired Productions picking up the torch, we’re launching out of early access and into version 1.0 with a different approach that we think players will really appreciate and enjoy. We thank both partners for their dedication to the game, along with Games Workshop”
