Ubisoft Reflections deliver an almost supernatural Driver where Tanner shifts between drivers mid-chase. The pulp presentation is delicious, San Francisco hums and the cheeky direction makes everything forgivable.
Your verdict
Category
Racing1 player16+
Description
Open-world action by Reflections and Ubisoft. Detective Tanner uses a ghost-shift ability to temporarily possess any San Francisco driver while hunting a criminal. Unique consciousness-shifting mechanic allowing instant switching between dozens of drivers from a high view, spectacular car chases and cinematic narrative. Original mechanics in a recreated San Francisco.
Driver - San Francisco review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
4/5
Story
★★★★★
"Captivating"
Reflections stages the hero's power through a camera move: the Shift lifts off the windshield, rises above the city in one take, then dives into another vehicle without a cut. San Francisco is modeled for that vertical back and forth, hills offering ramps, low fog over the bay, and the seventies cop-show aesthetic does the rest, chrome and whitewall tires included.
The selection embraces the chase movie: brass funk, soul and seventies rock giving the steep streets their cop-show cadence, rounded out with newer tracks for the tenser events. The music changes with the possessed driver, each car radio having its own tastes, so hopping from body to body also means switching stations.
The narrative trick is a deferred confession: Tanner, comatose after the opening crash, dreams the entire city, and his possession power is merely the logic of a sleeping mind. The game plants clues in the borrowed drivers' dialogue, doctors' voices and radio fragments, up to a revelation that rereads everything before it. Few racing games dare a construction of this kind.
A Reflections action-racer, Driver San Francisco reconnects with the series' cinematic driving and introduces Shift, the power to instantly jump from one vehicle to another. Widespread in the West, its interest lies in this singular concept and the successful return of a beloved license rather than scarcity. A piece valued by fans of narrative arcade racing.
Is Driver - San Francisco still worth playing in 2026?
Released in 2011 on Xbox 360, Ubisoft Reflections' Driver San Francisco revives the chase series with a wild, brilliant idea, the Shift, which lets you teleport instantly into any vehicle in the city. This power, justified by a dreamlike plot, turns every chase into a strategic ballet where you can cause head on collisions. The arcade driving feel, weighty and joyful, pays homage to 1970s films. The package stays light in some respects. But the inventiveness is total. For fans of original arcade racing, this singular title keeps a rare charm today.
