GRID Autosport
Image: Feral Interactive

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and we'll be running several features focused on how video games of all types have helped us through periods when we were struggling with our mental health.

Today, Richard shares how racing games helped restore him during a difficult period...

I tense up whenever I take a corner in F-Zero, clenching my jaw as I whip around a hairpin turn, just barely missing the wall and glancing another pilot. My fingers claw the Super Nintendo pad’s buttons almost like I’m steering Captain Falcon’s machine for real, careening down the streets of Port Town at 400 km/h. The only thing on my mind is crossing that finish line before the computer can. It’s all I have room to think about.

Between races, there’s a lot of gunk in my brain. Cascading anxiety about the swift and sudden breakup of a six-year relationship; shame at my failure to find steady work after being laid off from my first full-time job; embarrassment at having to move back in with family when job opportunities dried up in the pandemic; anguish at the grisly details of a true crime story I had spent months reporting on for an investigative journalism podcast.

But when the pilots hit the grid for the next race, machines whirring in anticipation, every other thought is silenced. I steel myself for another round of futuristic motorsports, and my worries melt away as the track blurs beneath my little Blue Falcon.

Even when I’m sick, I play video games. And during this period of depression, which dragged me down in the early months of 2022, racing games were all I could play. I sunk dozens of hours into the Switch’s meager racing offerings, from the original F-Zero on Nintendo Switch Online’s SNES app, to GRID Autosport, SEGA AGES Virtua Racing, and Rush Rally Origins. I chased time trials in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe—surpassing both the 150cc and 200cc staff records—to get those gold tires. I did it all because it seemed like these digital racetracks were the only places where I wouldn’t be reminded of a failed relationship or the vivid police report of a very real rape and murder.

My improvement could be measured in seconds, in ever-rising placings each grand prix.

I don’t even like cars that much. I don’t watch professional racing, nor did I regularly play many racing games before this brief obsession. But my mainstays weren’t doing it for me. Cozy games reminded me of my ex. Puzzle games left too much room for idle thinking. And the action games I wanted to play—No More Heroes 3, Elden Ring, even Dead Cells—were too violent for me. I couldn’t handle the sound or image of blood splatter, even with the blood and gore settings turned down in the games that offered it.

Racing games seemed like a safe haven because I knew so little about them, and yet they ran deep in the history of video games. I could learn something—always a good way to distract myself—but I could also sink my teeth into a relatively non-violent genre that would provide all the challenge of the tough-as-nails action games I love.

So, F-Zero seemed like a good place to start. I had played F-Zero X casually on the Wii Virtual Console way back when, and dabbled in F-Zero GX on the GameCube. But I had never really taken the time to figure out the original game.

The debut entry of the series is a surprisingly deep racer, as anyone who’s spent serious time in the battle royale adaptation F-Zero 99 knows. The tracks are intricate, with long straightaways that beckon you to slam the accelerator and burn precious boost power, mixed with maddening turns, mines, and magnets that demand careful employment of the brakes and slide buttons.

when the pilots hit the grid for the next race, machines whirring in anticipation, every other thought is silenced

The more I tore around Mute City, Death Wind, and Fire Field, the more I realized that racing games, like speedrunning, are games of numbers, trial-and-error, and tiny, split-second decisions. They’re both about optimization—perfecting those racing lines—and the pure thrill of going really, really fast. When I’m nailing every turn and inching past rivals as I shave milliseconds off each lap, I enter a kind of fragile flow state where I know anything can go wrong at any moment.

For me, at that point in my life, there was value in games that felt dangerous, games where I could fail catastrophically. In the simulation-style racer GRID, with the appropriate options enabled, cars get serious wear and tear that can cause vehicles to lean one way or another the entire race; get bumped off the track in F-Zero and machines simply explode. But mitigating these setbacks, learning from mistakes and rising above them to do better next time, helped me build back some self-confidence when it felt like everything had gone wrong. My improvement could be measured in seconds, in ever-rising placings each grand prix.

When my depression became too much to bear alone, my psychiatric nurse recommended I admit myself into partial hospitalization, a carefully regimented outpatient mental health program.

I learned a tremendous amount about myself there, and even walked out with a fresh diagnosis that helped me switch to medications and behavioral therapies that changed my life for the better.

GRID Autosport Screen
Image: Feral Interactive

But I still consider racing games to be a critical part of my recovery. Not only were they fun—which is pretty important—they reinforced the messages imparted to me by the health professionals at the hospital. Change is incremental, and I need to acknowledge and even celebrate small victories each day, especially when something as simple as getting out of bed can feel impossible. And, crucially, mental health is holistic: the health of the mind is closely tied to the wellness of the body. Sleep, exercise, and diet all affect how my brain works, whether I like it or not.

Even if I take a turn too hard in Virtua Racing and burn seconds off the shrinking timer, there’s always the next turn, the next race, the next day. And when I ace that turn next time, and the time after that, I won’t take it for granted. I learned to do that, and even moments that fleeting are worth cheering for.