Leaked Gameplay Footage of Cancelled Nintendo Switch Ridge Racer Game Surfaces

From what we know, this cancelled Nintendo Switch Ridge Racer game—often called Ridge Racer 8 in rumors—was being worked on by Bandai Namco Studios Singapore. It looks like they started development early in the Switch’s life, with a test version dated January 6, 2017. That fits with the Switch launch in March 2017, so it might have been planned as one of the first games for the console.

Developers used Unreal Engine 4 to build it, and some leaked video from a Switch test kit, shared recently, shows what it could’ve been like. The early version leaned a lot on older Ridge Racer games, especially the 2011 one for PS Vita, reusing things like cars and tracks but adding simple options to tweak performance or repaint cars. It had a Grand Prix mode with a few races, kind of like the PSP’s Ridge Racers. But it was obviously just an early build—collision merchanics were off, the announcer’s voice was just a stand-in, and driving felt bumpy, not polished like the other Ridge Racer games.

Talk about this game popped up around 2018-2019 when old Bandai Namco Singapore workers mentioned it on LinkedIn. They’d worked on two secret Unreal Engine 4 projects that got canceled: one thought to be Metroid Prime 4 (later given back to Retro Studios) and the other pegged as Ridge Racer 8.
[Source]