Ridge Racer's original title was Texture Drive

Likely to pay homage to the game's use of texture mapping.

Namco's classic arcade racer Ridge Racer has been given a new lease of life through the Arcade Archives series, and in connection with this, a previously unknown detail about the game's development has been revealed, more specifically, its original name, which was Texture Drive.

An unexpectedly fitting name, considering how ground-breaking Ridge Racer actually was within the genre, being one of the very first games to use texture mapping, which at the time looked almost impossibly realistic.

The revelation about the working title came from user ohfivepro on BlueSky, who shared images from a planning document where the name "Texture Drive" appeared. This seems to be the first time this information has come to the public's attention.

What do you think of the name Texture Drive, and what are your earliest Ridge Racer memories?