The story of Star Wars: Galactic Racer follows Shade, a cargo pilot from Gathleon. After the fall of the Empire, Shade enters the Galactic League founded by Darius Pax to take on the champion who wrecked their life: Kestar Bool.
The campaign is made up of a prologue, three acts, and an epilogue. Shade fights through qualifying in Act I, then beats Kestar in Act II, only to have the win taken away. In Act III, Shade switches to a podracer and beats Kestar all over again. Below, we walk through the story scene by scene, explaining what happens and why, all the way to the ending.
You don’t need to have seen the Star Wars movies to follow along. Wherever a scene ties into the films, we’ve added a “Movie Note.”
For a spoiler-free synopsis, see our overview of the game.
- When Is the Story Set? Connections to the Movies
- Prologue: Why Does Shade End Up Joining the League?
- Act I (The Qualifier): How Does the Final Race Against Sebulba Go?
- Act II: What Is Kestar’s “Ringer” Accusation?
- Act III: The Podracer Showdown and the Ending
- Epilogue: What Happens to the League?
- The Ending Explained: Why Doesn’t Shade Help Run the League?
- 4 Lingering Questions About the Story
- FAQ
When Is the Story Set? Connections to the Movies
The story is set in the era after the Galactic Empire falls in Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. As pilots who honed their skills in the war look for somewhere new to belong, Darius Pax launches the Galactic League. It’s a league that races from planet to planet and crowns its champion at its home base, Derven Acos.
| Film | What Happens in the Film | Connection to This Game |
|---|---|---|
| Episode I – The Phantom Menace | Young Anakin beats Sebulba in a podrace | Sebulba and other podracers from that era appear |
| Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back | Han Solo is frozen in carbonite | Kestar brings it up in a threat |
| Episode VI – Return of the Jedi | The Emperor and Darth Vader fall, and the Empire collapses | The story takes place after this. It’s also what got Shade out of an Imperial prison |
| Episode VII and Episode VIII | Set much later. Jakku and Crait become battlegrounds | You race on the same planets |
The starship wrecks scattered across Jakku’s desert went down in the final battle against the Empire. Sebulba is the only movie character central to the story; everyone else is a new character created for this game.
The League is closely tied to the Bool family, who have ruled Gathleon for centuries. Reigning champion Kestar is the family’s scion, and he’s using his father’s power and money to wrest the League away from Pax.
| Character | Position | Role in the Story |
|---|---|---|
| Shade | The protagonist. A cargo pilot from Gathleon | Joins the League to beat Kestar |
| Hibi | Shade’s ship mechanic and an inventor | Builds Shade’s machines, and in the end even puts together a podracer |
| Darius Pax | Founder of the League | Recruits Shade and secretly becomes Shade’s backer |
| Kestar Bool | The League’s reigning champion. Scion of the Bool family | Gets in Shade’s way and takes over the League |
| Sebulba | A legendary podracer | Shade’s final qualifying opponent. Backs Shade in Act III |
Prologue: Why Does Shade End Up Joining the League?
The prologue opens with a holo transmission from Pax. Racing nearly died out under the Empire, and Pax says he wants to bring it back to the way it used to be. The podracer may be the ultimate machine, but hardly anyone can fly one, so the League races speeders instead. Pax shows off each one in action: a landspeeder, a speeder bike, and a skim speeder.
Then Pax asks Shade to become the racer who beats Kestar, because Kestar is using his father’s power and credits to force Pax out of the League.
Shade still isn’t keen. Hibi, standing nearby, gives Shade a nudge: “Same-old delivery jobs, or destiny?” So Shade heads for the League paddock, with a delivery to make there anyway.
Act I (The Qualifier): How Does the Final Race Against Sebulba Go?
A Run-In with Kestar Convinces Shade to Join the League
In the paddock on Jakku, Pax talks Shade into a first race, calling it just a “friendly exhibition race.” Shade refuses (“I’m not here to join your league. I’m not a racer.”), but Pax won’t take no for an answer, and Shade races.
In that race, Shade’s machine collides with Kestar’s speeder. Kestar accuses Shade of getting in his way on the straight and even says, “If they weren’t holding me back right now, I’d have you frozen in carbonite!” Yet Kestar doesn’t remember that the two have met before. That makes up Shade’s mind. Shade tells Pax, “I’m in. I’m going to beat him.”
Carbonite is what Han Solo was frozen in alive in Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back. He was carted off in that state and ended up displayed on a wall in Jabba the Hutt’s palace. Kestar is threatening to do something just as bad to Shade.
With No Backers, Shade Gets a Secret Token from Pax
Racing in the League requires League Tokens, which backers hand out. But the backers saw Shade’s run-in with Kestar, and none of them will openly support a Gathii (a person from Gathleon) who’s feuding with the Bool family’s scion.
So Pax hands over the first token himself, keeping it secret that he’s Shade’s backer. The League’s owner backing a racer would be a conflict of interest, so the deal is: “Anyone asks who your backer is, play up the ‘enigmatic stranger’ thing.” That secret becomes a big problem at the end of Act II.
The Last Qualifying Opponent: Sebulba, Handpicked by Kestar
The qualifying tour goes from Jakku to Lantaana and Ando Prime, ending on Derven Acos. The final qualifying race is usually a one-on-one formality, but Kestar pits Shade against a podracing legend, Sebulba.
Sebulba is the Dug racer who went up against a young Anakin Skywalker in the Episode I podrace. He used dirty tricks like wrecking his rivals’ machines, but Anakin passed him in the end, and Sebulba’s own podracer was wrecked too. This game features an older Sebulba.
Beating Sebulba makes Shade an official League racer. After the race, Sebulba comes up to Shade and grumbles that Kestar called him in, yet the Bool family won’t pay him. He also reveals that the Bools have factories and other operations on every League planet, so the bigger the League grows, the more the Bools gain.
Act II: What Is Kestar’s “Ringer” Accusation?
The Real Reason Pax Chose Shade
At the start of Act II, Pax reveals that he knows about the three years Kestar had Shade locked away in an Imperial prison. When Shade wonders who told him, Pax says, “It’s why I chose you for this.”
Three years! Heh… I can’t imagine it.
You must have asked yourself—how are you ever going to get that time back?
This is your time, Shade. Right now! Take it!
To Pax, Shade was the trump card for beating Kestar, and at the same time the very person whose life Kestar had stolen. This is where Shade’s reason for racing in the League shifts from “winning races” to “getting back the time that was taken.”
How Does Kestar See the Gathii?
In Act II, Kestar taunts Shade in the paddock again and again. One taunt is a story he says he heard from his father. A Gathii couple in the Bool family’s “work program” had been sabotaging the energy mines they were entrusted to build. When young Kestar asked why, his father apparently answered:
It is the Gathii instinct to resist those who only wish to improve their pitiful lives!
To the Bools, ruling Gathleon means “improving their lives.” Anyone who resists is either ungrateful or driven by that kind of instinct. In another taunt, Kestar trots out something the Bools teach the Gathii in their work programs: “Give it up. You’re. No. Good.” Kestar looks down on Shade because he has inherited this way of thinking wholesale.
Hibi Learns the History Between Shade and Kestar
As the showdown with Kestar approaches, Hibi asks Shade about the past. During a protest on Gathleon that turned into a fight, Shade crashed into Kestar’s speeder. Because of that, Shade was thrown without trial into an Imperial prison in the hollow of a moon for three years, and only got out when the Empire fell.
With no light. And no contact. For three years.
…And Kestar wouldn’t even remember that it happened.
After the Emperor falls in Episode VI, the Rebel Alliance forms the New Republic and starts rebuilding the galaxy while fighting what’s left of the Empire. Shade says they got out of prison because the Empire fell and the New Republic had them released.
Shade Beats Kestar in the Championship, but the Win Is Revoked
After winning through the Galactic Gauntlet, Shade faces Kestar head-to-head in the Championship on Derven Acos. Shade beats Kestar.
But in front of a packed stadium and his father Kedron, who has come to watch, Kestar announces that Shade is a ringer secretly bankrolled by Pax. Pax really was Shade’s backer, so there’s no denying it. Kestar calls Shade “a puppet of the corrupt, scheming… Darius Pax,” and the win is declared void.
Pax is hauled away by the Bools, and Kestar declares that he’ll take over as League Commissioner. His first new rule: from now on, the championship will be defended in a podracer. The podracer Kestar races originally belonged to Sebulba.
Act III: The Podracer Showdown and the Ending
Teaming Up with Sebulba to Build a Podracer from Junk
Act III, “Kestar’s Galactic League,” begins with Shade disqualified from the previous tour. The tour is still raced in speeders as before, but Kestar, the opponent in the final, races a podracer. Hibi says, “No speeder can keep up with a podracer,” and decides Shade needs a podracer too.
Then Sebulba shows up. He says he owns two podracers and offers to lend Shade one. The conditions: Shade and Hibi split their earnings with him, and Shade beats Kestar to win back Sebulba’s own podracer. Calling the paddock’s racers “clowns,” Sebulba says few humans have ever beaten him, then continues:
You’re serious. I think you can go all the way. So, let me help. I want to invest in your future.
In other words, a legendary racer known for dirty tricks recognized Shade’s skill, and Shade’s alone, and placed his bet on it. Shade balks at working under anyone, but Hibi has already accepted the deal.
What’s waiting in Sebulba’s workshop on Tatooine is a podracer that’s little more than junk. Hibi rebuilds it into a podracer that even a human can fly, and Shade learns to pilot it in Podracer Tests between tour events. After the first test, Hibi says, “You don’t have the reflexes for podracing, Shade,” and promises to build a device to make up for it.
Tatooine is the desert planet where Anakin and Luke Skywalker grew up, and the setting of the podrace in Episode I. Even in the movie’s podrace, Anakin was the only human racer. That’s also why Sebulba has his eye on Shade.
Before the Final, Shade Had Already Decided Not to Kill Kestar
Before the final, Hibi worries: “Don’t kill Kestar, Shade! You’ll make him a martyr.” Shade answers, “I’m not going to kill Kestar. I’m going to beat him.” When Shade takes on the final a second time, Sebulba eggs Shade on: “If that doesn’t work, detonate the bomb on his podracer!” Shade won’t hear of it: “I don’t think we’ve planted any bombs in Kestar’s podracer.”
What Happens After Shade Beats Kestar?
After winning through the Galactic Gauntlet, Shade beats Kestar in the Championship, this time in a podracer.
Kestar makes a scene, shouting, “Bringing a bomb into a crowded stadium?!” and ranting, “I will not have it endangered by the street scum of Gathleon!” When the crowd chants Shade’s name, Kestar demands, “Say my name!” Then he says, “Congratulations, Shade. You won,” and shoots Shade with a blaster.
Not even his father Kedron can let this pass, and he orders Kestar taken away. Malis, a mercenary hired by the Bool family, tells him, “Daddy says playtime’s over,” and Kestar is dragged off, calling for his father.
Even after being shot, Shade tries to get up. Hibi stays close: “Just give them a wave, that’s all they want, just a nice little wave…” Shade is cheered as the new champion of the Galactic League.
Epilogue: What Happens to the League?
In the epilogue, Sebulba tells Hibi that from now on he wants to race not on rough backwater planets, but in big stadiums on Coruscant, Naboo, and Canto Bight.
Coruscant is the galaxy’s capital world, and Naboo is the planet Queen Amidala ruled in Episode I. Canto Bight is the casino city for the rich that appears in Episode VIII. All three are glamorous places, the opposite of the backwater worlds.
With Kestar gone, the League has no one to hold it together. Even so, the backers want the League to go on, so they ask Sebulba to become the new Commissioner. Sebulba accepts with an exaggerated show of surprise, and Hibi joins in running the League as well.
Sebulba assumed Shade would help run the League too. But Shade declines: “It’s not what I came here for. And we’ve seen what being in charge costs.” Hibi says, “Shade…I love you…but I can’t be fixing your ship forever,” and chooses to run the League with Sebulba.
Shade replies, “I think, right now, I just want to go fly something,” and the story ends with Hibi’s “I’ll be right here. When you get back.”
The Ending Explained: Why Doesn’t Shade Help Run the League?
Kestar and the power of the Bool family took three years of Shade’s life. Pax chose Shade by urging them to take that time back, and at the end of the story, Sebulba and the backers offer Shade a seat among the people who run the League.
Even so, Shade doesn’t take that seat. The reason Shade gives is “we’ve seen what being in charge costs.” Being sent to prison, having the win revoked, Pax being hauled away: all of it was the work of forces outside the race.
Kestar is the counterpoint. He ran the League on his father’s power and money, and when he lost, he tried to snatch the win back by crying “ringer” and “bomb.” In the end, his own father turns his back on him and has him dragged away. The one who leaned on power ends up abandoned by it.
Before the final, Shade had also said, “I’m not going to kill Kestar. I’m going to beat him.” Shade gets revenge not by getting rid of Kestar, but by winning the race. And Shade’s final words are “I just want to go fly something.” What a cargo pilot who spent three years in a pitch-black prison wanted back may not have been status at all, but the freedom to fly.
4 Lingering Questions About the Story
Was There Really a “Bomb,” as Kestar Claimed?
Before he fires, Kestar shouts, “Bringing a bomb into a crowded stadium?!” but there’s no scene where Shade uses a bomb. When Sebulba urged Shade to set one off, Shade refused.
The bomb may have been a pretext for shooting Shade in front of the crowd. Like the “ringer” accusation in Act II, it’s a way of refusing to accept defeat by painting the opponent as the villain. This time, though, not even his father took his side.
Who Was the “First Human” to Beat Sebulba?
In Act III, Sebulba says Shade is one of the few humans who have ever beaten him, and goes on to say this about the first:
The first one, you think he went on to be some legendary racer? Nah. He disappeared. Must have made nothing of his life.
In Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the one who beat Sebulba in the podrace was a young Anakin Skywalker. The “first one” Sebulba mentions may be Anakin. Anakin later left Tatooine, became a Jedi, eventually sided with the Empire as Darth Vader, and died in Episode VI. Sebulba seems to know nothing of a life that went far beyond anything he could imagine.
What Happened to Pax?
After being hauled away at the end of Act II, Pax never returns to the story. When Hibi asks about him in Act III, Shade says he’s either been killed or sent to prison, just as Shade once was.
In the epilogue, when Sebulba starts to say, “With Pax and Kestar both dead—” Shade cuts in: “They’re not dead.” Pax may still be alive somewhere. Before he was taken, Pax cried out to Kedron, “We…we had a deal…!” so he seems to have had some kind of arrangement with the Bools.
What Has the Bool Family Done to Gathleon?
The Bool family’s conglomerate occupied Gathleon and has ruled the Gathii people for centuries. The story Kestar brought up in Act II, about the Gathii couple who tampered with the energy mines, took place under this rule.
So did Shade getting caught up in a protest and thrown into prison. The Bools’ businesses also extend across the League’s planets, so Kestar’s obsession with the League may have been partly about the family business.
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