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After a years-long way, this Initial D-inspired open-world racing game is now just a few weeks away

JDM: Japanese Drift Master, a street racing game inspired by Initial D, releases March 26, 2025. The game features intense drifting, car customization, and manga-style storytelling set in a beautiful Japanese landscape.

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Hotly-anticipated street racing game JDM: Japanese Drift Master just unveiled a new trailer at the Future Games Show Live from GDC.

The trailer starts its engines in the beautiful Japanese countryside before cutting through city streets, over towering bridges, and along rural highways. With a whole suite of vehicles at your disposal (in a range of fetching colors, of course), you'll get to make your mark as you burn rubber all over Japan.

The launch trailer shows off plenty of drifting, of course, but there's also peeks at car customization, a high-tempo soundtrack to enjoy, and a couple of brief looks at JDM: Japanese Drift Master's manga-style storytelling. That's because (as if the gently retro stylings of the game weren't enough to spell it out), Japanese Drift Master is something of an homage to iconic street-racing manga Initial D, which ran in Japan from 1995 to 2013, and has several of its own anime and video game adaptations.

It's been a long wait for JDM: Japanese Drift Master - it first caught our eye when it was once of the biggest demos in a 2023 edition of Steam Next Fest, but the wait is almost over. Today's trailer reconfirms a release date of March 26, 2025, which means that after a patient few years, you've only got a few more weeks to wait before you can start your engine and start burning rubber.

If you’re looking for more excellent games from today's Future Games Show, have a look at our official Steam page.

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