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We've fixed the issue with Level 8's ski lift, whose arms were spinning wildly out of control. You can once again grab the clamps and drag 'em back onto the car, so you're not guaranteed to fall to your doom.
Happy Holidays and a quick hotfix for the Holiday Heist level from us, with:
An out of bounds path, previously available on the immediate left and right on entering the Port of Pebkac, have been blocked off. You forgot your hardhat, so...
The stevedore working in the warehouse doesn't warp around no more
Driving out of the metropolitan elite restaurant tower to the action movie down-the-side-of-the-building path no longer makes the car flip out and go nuts
Doors on the smash-thru container shouldn't get stuck
Added collision to props and environment that was missing it
Removed collision from props and environment that didn't need it
Made it harder to fall off the sides of the down-the-tower path
Told the bartender to chill out. Rather than fidgeting around on the spot he's now reading his phone
Pick you up for the next one.
Hello hello and happy holidays and new years to everyone everywhere! Before the team here has a chance to wind down and take a well-earned break, everyone's been working very hard on today's update, which, alongside various bugfixes, increases the length of the game by about 10%! Featuring a new level, new cosmetics, new car paint jobs, new driver and passenger skins and more, here's everything you're getting when you unwrap The Holiday Heist.
One of today's major additions is an adorable (if slightly addle-brained) doggie as a playable passenger, with art by Jason, fully functional with custom animations courtesy of Max/Deadcat, voice acting by Joey's dog Queenie and additional sounds by Garrett ... and without progression or rating-gating involved. That's right! This little fella roams free, and is available to play for everyone who's purchased a copy of Backseat Drivers.
Said pooch comes in a variety of breeds:
He's playful:
He's mischevious:
He's cute:
And most importantly, he's yours (if you can stay out of a jail cell):
The second major piece of content released today is a new level, The Holiday Heist, in which the occupants of the Harlow Patchwork, back in the city of Pebkac and en route to holiday shopping, take a detour which has them stumble into a tense police standoff situation, then commit some larceny maybe, and make a get-very-far-away. All totally by accident, your honor, I swear.
This level also isn't gated and is available to play for everyone no matter how far through the game you've got, as a thank you to all players for accompanying on this long and winding journey. Thank you all for riding with us. You're hilarious and we love you and we've loved having you with us. A road trip without good company is no company at all. You are the ones who have made all the work worthwhile.
For some reason, even though the so-called heist was totally by accident, Gramma and Grampa also just so happened to be wearing bank robbing gear:
Grampa's grand larceny gear, in which he is known as the Gramburgler
Gramma's great heist outfit, in which she goes by Grammaclava
There's also some new cosmetics to unlock and to pick up, with associated achievements:
And a host of new (or uhhh forgotten-and-unused-til-now) car paint jobs, some of which were available in the demo, are at long last available in the full game to everyone:
We've also made some improvements to gamepad controls, and fixed errant bits and pieces of localization here and there.
As follows:
New level, The Holiday Heist
New passenger, Rex, a harebrained hound, in a variety of color variants
New driver skin, The Gramburgler, in various skin variants
New driver skin, The Grammaclava, in various skin variants
Several new music tracks on tapes in The Holiday Heist
New cosmetic pedal pickup, the money stack, and associated achievement "Vacation savings"
New cosmetic shifter unlockable, the crowbar, and associated achievement "One last job"
New cosmetic pedal unlockable, the C4, and associated achievement "Pond's 2"
New cosmetic window roller unlockable, the gun, and associated achievement "The slow and the calm"
New cosmetic steering wheel unlockable, the Christmas star, and associated achievement "Point (winter) break"
"New" (actually restored from the BSD demo) car paint job, super cool lava rally flames
Another new-to-you car paint job, the mind bending purple polka dots
Another new-to-you car paint job, go-faster stripes, in various colors
An actually new car paint job, "Rusty White"
Another actually new car paint job, "Fuddy-duddy Fuschia"
Fixes to the play experience with gamepad
Fixes to busted bits of localization
That's all for now.
Have a great Christmas, Holiday, New Year, or just December if that's all it is to you!
Pick you up when it's time for the next one.
Because there's not an "Only With Friends" or a "Turn Your Friends Against You" category!
We've put the whole year into making Backseat Drivers a frustratingly fun struggle in which you laugh til you cry/cry til you laugh, and muddling through its weird world with your friends is the most important element in making it feel like a fun and rewarding experience. It's also the only way to experience it at all, but that is beside the snuggly, cute, marshmallowy, heartfelt point I am trying to make.
Seriously. Your time spent playing, and all your many clips of the ensuing chaos, have made it all worth it to us already, but if you enjoyed the game at all, your nominations and your reviews would be the cherry on top!!
The Halloween content update and the Arcade update that just went live weren't the last, either. More content is incoming, so stay parked right there 'til we're done!!
NOMINATE BACKSEAT DRIVERS FROM NOW TIL DEC 1st @ 10AM PACIFIC
Hey! A fairly quick patch today, but a significant one: we've updated the game with ARCADE MODE, which supports WASD steering (for those using mouse + keyboard), and a similarly straightforward layout for controllers.
This is to further alleviate the motion sickness symptoms felt by some players who struggle with the mouselook-driven steering wheel controls — or, for whatever reason you want. It's your game, after all. We just made it.
A couple of other fixes snuck through along with this, so here's everything:
Arcade Mode, whereby direct, remappable inputs (e.g. WASD) control steering wheel direction, as opposed to the click-and-drag-and-spin-your-head default or the click-and-drag-and-spin-your-hand Center Interact.
Steam Cloud Saves are now supported, so you can keep your unlocks and progression wherever you might be*
The particle collider tunnel in level 6 that you have to rocket through to get to the portal was occasionally really hard to rocket through, so we've smoothed it out and made it a bit more forgiving. Because we forgive you.
Some improvements to the menu flow when using a controller
Made the extra thicc accessibility / mode menu text lose some of its chonkiness
More steps to get that gorgeous green Steam Deck Verified checkmark
More network optimizations
We are still cooking more substantial updates with new content and other surprises, so stay tuned, because we'll be picking you up for the next one.
Known Issues:
We're having an issue with the ski-lift on level 8 with a controller, you can use your mouse as a workaround right now. We're planning to have a fix for this soon.
* Valve does provide information on disabling steam cloud. You can follow the instructions on this page if needed.
Sorry for the delay on this patch — it's a few days later than we wanted — we've been super busy working on more content!!!!! coming soon.
Now get in loser, we killed the scariest bugs in the car!
Fixed the skin system bug in which swapping from driver to passenger in gameplay didn't respect which character you chose, sometimes giving you the other player's character or a default selection. Now it should respect everyone's choices.
Fixed an issue with pedals not being able to swap between displaying (and being pressed by) Q & E. As if this game wasn't confusing enough already.
Fixed an issue in level 8 with the snow plow chase sometimes failing to trigger on successive respawns. Now he won't stop til he gets you or falls off the mountain
Also fixed an issue in level 8 with the metal jingle bells cover coming from the murderous snow plow sometimes not audible for everybody in the car
Cleanup of some misbehaving rascals in the netcode
Pick you up when it's time for the next one.
Come, confused little road users, you want not the overpriced carnival family haunted house ride this All Hallows Eve! 'Tis much more frightening (and cheaper tbh) to take a short drive to us, instead, where terror and dark secrets await, barely cloistered within ...
Along with new content and a carful of fixes, this update brings our first post-launch level, An Evening at Gramma's, our bone-chilling take on the classic roadside attractions of yore. Ghosts and ghouls and weird stuff that will make you go "huh?" lurk within! Drive on up and see for yourself IF YOU DARE.
We are still working on the other upcoming neat secret stuff in the GhostJam game dev lab on wheels, but for now, an overview of what's included in today's terrifying update.
New level, An Evening at Gramma's, available to everyone no matter how far through the story they are
New car cosmetics to unlock for the new level
New driver skin: Grampula
New driver skin: Grandwitch
New passenger skin: Bonesy
Passenger directional callouts (up/down/left/right/stop) now change based on character. Monday (Goth Girl)'s voice is pitched up, Buggs (Big Boy)'s voice is pitched down, and Bonesy's voice is clattering bones and xylophone hits.
Improved center interact to make it more reliable
The rocket button now blinks when ready, and beeps angrily before it explodes you
The poo room's flood wheel in level 3 was a bit hard to see, so we now draw a little more attention to it
Cosmetic car pickup items in all levels will now play their twinkle sound and display their VFX properly to make them a bit easier to find (and now correctly play their pickup SFX)
Enabled forward shading for faster rendering and better performance
Optimized shaders to be kinder to more hardware
Optimized transparency pass so that e.g. looking through a bunch of transparent materials at once doesn't punish your GPU as much
Fixed localization for some languages that were unable to be selected
Center interact vs normal interaction.
Added another lighter literally taped to the cannon at the end of Level 5 to make it less frustrating to light the fuse if yours is stuck under a seat or something
Another fix for the dang CCTV machine in Level 6 (please work)
Balanced various SFX throughout the game, banged fists on top of various other SFX so that it actually plays
Fixed the crosshair when pumping gas in level 6
Added desperate food-wrapper-unwrapping SFX to food order on level 2
Fixed some collisions on the cute alien murdering puzzle on level 7
Found your mouse pointer! It was getting lost on the mission complete screen
Fixed some speed bumps that were too brutal, too metal, too hardcore for a sweet little game like this
Fixed the fire grate kill cam which would sometimes give you the awe-inspiring, astonishing view of the inside of a rock
Additionally shrunk the bounds of the fire grate since it was incinerating your car and everyone in it from a smidge too far away
Spacebar now removes an item when ordering your wonderful healthy meal in level 2
The Device doesn't beepbeepbeepbeepbeebeEEBEEBEEBEEBEEEEEEEEEEEEP at you when dropped any more
Game audio now ducks when you complete a mission so you don't get sensory overload from ALL THE SOUNDS playing
Speaking of the complete screen! It now animates your stats a bit faster without mashing the spacebar or furious clicking, and correctly plays SFX while it does
Resolved an issue with passenger-perspective fire not being removed when the passenger's fire is extinguished
Moved a bunch of the crud at the motel on level 6 that was incorrectly blocking off some routes through and making others unintentionally difficult
The leaderboards now display the first 100 entries instead of the first 10
Something may have scrambled up the skins system which means they can switch undesirably in gameplay. We're working on a fix!
Pick you up when it's time for the next one.
Another round of windshield wipes for another round of sneaky little bugs that got all smooshed and dried on there.
As follows:
Fixed VSync. Vs now properly synced.
Ys can now be inverted! Added a new "Inverted Y axis" option in the settings since it'd been highly requested, possibly by those of you who are airplane pilots and are used to it being that way? Just kidding, this had been on our radar a while — thanks for the requests and for your patience.
Ragdoll issues resolved. Let us know if they continue to misbehave.
Fixed the food order in level 2. You can now, once again, see what you're meant to order and how to order it.
Fixed collision in various places basically in every level. What you collide with is important. That goes for outside the game, and in.
Checkpoint in level 4 fixed, shouldn't put you inside some horrible boulder for no reason after ramming poor innocent sweet gremlin Froyo Hopkins
Added glare FX to dome light in car to make the reason you're horribly flashbanged a little clearer
Your "Gashole" in level 6 will now flash when your hole wants gas. Er, no comment.
Adjusted bounds for coin toss to make it easier to land your "Kobe!"s into the coin baskets and so on
Adjusted bounds for level 2 park puzzle so less undesirable stratospheric escapes and other mischief can happen
Don't play with fire, kids!! Except in level 5, where we have fixed an issue that could sometimes break the lighter.
Here's the notes for the next incoming hotfix. Please keep your reports coming!!
Speculative fix for a GPU crash that's been reported 🤞
Less of the weird wheelies when the car respawns in level 05 (it's already hellish enough)
Tweaks to the Niles Pirelli statue puzzle in 2 to draw a little more attention to its pertinent focal points
Characters now save when progressing from one level to the next; if you were driving at the end of one level, you should still be driving at the start of the next
Potential fix for ingame VOIP breaking when moving to the next level
Removed the extremely effective quadruple glazing on the car's windows that Gramma paid extra for (you can no longer throw an item through a closed window!!)
Fix to an issue with the level 06 CCTV puzzle that caused a softlock for some players
Fixed flamethrower culling
Fixed collision on some assets in level 04
Level 05: slowed down the lava balls
Level 05: cannon tweaks to better signal what to do
Level 07: coolant trigger behaves correctly
Level 08: ski jump fix (stick the landing!)
Friends list should be more responsive
Overfilling gas now explodes the car as intended
Skin system fixes and general polish
Added vsync option to the settings
Thanks. Pick you up when it's time for the next one. 🚘
Swingin’ by with an incoming hotfix for immediate bugs (please keep ‘em coming):
Tuned the deafening flood sound in the level 3 poo room
Minor FOV issue fixed in menus
Tuned music volume in one of the level 5 areas
Removed some lingering debug bits on the fuse from level 5
Tape-in-mouth issue (noted in the earlier release post) has now been squashed
Fixed collision on some stalactites in Level 4
Thanks again!
After a long and winding road with many bumps, twists, turns and crashes … BACKSEAT DRIVERS HAS ARRIVED!!!
We’re beyond excited and proud to share with you an (almost! Read on… 👀) fully realized 1.0 version of the game, featuring:
The full journey through a campaign of 8 levels, taking you from the mundane to the interdimensionally insane
2 geriatric drivers and 3 impish passengers to choose from
Dozens of unlockable car cosmetics strewn about allllll over the place
2 game modes and 1 more on the way!!
We’re launching with a temporary 20% discount, so go get it before it drives away.
Since Backseat Drivers is a co-op only game, as initially planned, we’re launching with Friend Pass. That means you can buy one copy of the game and invite one friend to endure the madness with you in the 2-player Story game mode. BUT!!! As not initially planned, we’re also launching with the highly-requested 4-player Carpool game mode, in which the driver suffers through a full contingent of 3 bickering children breaking and throwing things and yelling conflicting directions.
We are ravenously hungry for bugs and need you to feed us. If you encounter any, wipe them off your windshield and send them to us using the “Report a bug” button on the main menu. That also goes for any visual glitches, or other issues and feedback on how we can improve. Please, our grandchildren are hungry.
B-T-Dubs there’s currently a known minor issue related to tapes that affects clients (i.e. anyone but the player hosting the session) — after a couple of engine stalls or switches, tapes that fly into the client’s mouth might float a little weirdly and be removable by said player with said tape in said mouth. We’re in the shop trying to get the mechanic to fix this right now. In the meantime, sorry for the convenience.
We’re not done with Backseat Drivers yet! The observant among you may notice the locked Race button next to Story and Carpool. Race is a work-in-progress game mode while we use grampa’s trouser press to iron out some creases, but when it’s done, 2 cars and 2 passengers will be pitted against each other to beat a level fastest — and can employ dirty tactics to sabotage their opponents en route. More details on Race mode soon™! We may also be working on other Backseat Drivers stuff upcoming … but- HNGHK I hjafve a tape ing my mghouth an I caghn’t shay angy morhe rfjhiht gnow.
We’re incredibly proud of what our tiny team of 8 full- and part-timers has achieved in releasing our first major title as a studio at GhostJam Games (and for coming to the end of our longest development cycle!). This wouldn’t have been possible without the team’s hard work, their immense creativity through long hours and sacrifice, nor the endless patience and generosity of our family and friends … and neither would have it been possible without all of the hilarious content creators and streamers sharing the Backseat Drivers demo and with the full game so far, or our dedicated group of closed beta testers who caught a million bajillion bugs we’d missed, our wonderful Discord community for posting their best times and feedback, and, of course, we’d most likely have given up months ago without seeing all the millions of demo players have such a “fun-strating” time with the game and tell us about it. Seriously — you inspired us to keep going. And last but certainly not least, we wouldn’t have been able to physically finish the game if we didn’t have the help of Foulball Hangover and their developer fund, which got us over the finish line. Huge thanks to Max + the team for your help and support these past months!
That’s all for this post, but stick around and we’ll come pick you up when it’s time for the next one. 🚘beep beep🚘
First off: we just want to say a massive thank you. Here goes…
Since the launch of our demo:
Over 235,000 players have added Backseat Drivers to their Steam wishlist
It's been downloaded more than 1.7 million times
1.4 million unique players have tried to escape the parking structure from hell
That’s way more yelling, oversteering, crashing and passenger-ejecting than we ever dreamed of. You’ve all made this wild little project something truly special, and we couldn’t be more grateful. 💖
We’re thrilled to finally share it: Backseat Drivers will officially launch on October 9, 2025.
Mark your calendars, grab your friends (willing or otherwise), and wishlist if you haven’t already. The full version is just around the bend!!
👉 Wishlist Backseat Drivers on Steam
Which grandma can punch it hardest? Time to find out. Stats are now tracked on global leaderboards.
Compete globally! Stats and times are now tracked on the in-game leaderboard.
Compare with friends for bragging rights!
Or, discover you’re slower than an actual grandma!
We’ve cleaned up a bunch of Steam invite issues so it’s easier to join your friends.
Invites should now work more reliably, even if your buddy is hiding “Offline.”
No more endless clicking or failed joins.
General stability + network improvements.
Small bug fixes. (Gramma can stop writing complaint letters… for now.)
(We’ll keep this updated as we get closer to release — here’s a starter list)
When exactly is the game releasing? → October 9, 2025
How much will it cost? → We’re releasing with a launch discount of 20% on a price of $9.99 (with regional pricing adjustments).
Will progress from the demo carry over? → No, they’re 2 different games — the full release features 8 new levels.
Can I still play the demo after release? → Yes sir or ma’am, we’re keeping the demo live to give people a taste of the torture of driving with granny, though we don’t have plans to continue updating it with new features from the full game.
Will there be more content at launch? → Oh yes! There’ll be 8 new levels, 3 new characters, tons of cosmetics, secrets, surprises, scares, skellingtons, and so much more.
We can’t thank you enough for the support so far. Whether you’ve been streaming, posting clips, or just shouting at your friends from the passenger seat — it means the world to us.
Stay tuned, buckle up, and slap that wishlist button if you haven't yet. The road to release starts now. 🏎️💥
– The GhostJam Games Team
We’re thrilled to announce that GhostJam Games has officially entered a development partnership with Foulball Hangover to help drive Backseat Drivers across the finish line.
Foulball Hangover, known for their unique and beloved indie titles (Hydroneer & Die Trying), shares our vision for creating games that are both endlessly fun and full of personality. Through this partnership via the Foulball Hangover Developer Fund, they’ve refueled GhostJam with a development loan that will allow our team to expand, polish, and optimize
Backseat Drivers ahead of launch.
With Foulball Hangover in the car, GhostJam has additional support that allows us to:
Add more features that the community has been asking for
Refine core gameplay to make the experience smoother and more engaging
Expand testing to ensure the game launches in the best possible state
From day one, Backseat Drivers has been a passion project fueled by community feedback and our team’s love for chaotic, cooperative fun. Partnering with Foulball Hangover gives us the resources to not only finish strong, but to deliver something truly special.
We can’t wait to share more updates in the coming weeks as we head toward release. In the meantime, wishlist Backseat Drivers on Steam and follow both GhostJam Games and Foulball Hangover to see what we’re cooking up together.
🚗💨 Buckle up — things are about to get wild.
– The GhostJam Games Team
FAQ:
Does Foulball Hangover have any creative control?
No. GhostJam Games retains all rights to Backseat Drivers and maintains full creative oversight — the final say on the game remains with us. Foulball Hangover, as an indie developer themselves, is an investor on Backseat Drivers, and have exactly the expertise to advise us on a successful launch.
Is this a publisher deal?
No. This is a development loan announcement. There’s no changes to any developer, publisher, or team structure as part of this loan.
Have you been acquired?
No.
When is Backseat Drivers coming out?
Soon™! We’re looking forward to sharing more on full release in the coming weeks 👀
Go checkout Foulball Hangover's games!
The winter tires are off, the AC is on max … and Gramma and Timmy are still trapped inside the car. They did find time to join the community Discord, though, so you should probably do that too.
AND they found the time to give the car a summer tune-up! So here’s the notes for today’s stability and quality of life patch, dubbed the “Summer Tune-Up-date”.
Added your very own owners manual for the car. Take a look! It’s got a red cover. It may help explain whatever the heck is going on in there.
Replaced the “get out of the parking complex” map with an atlas item which might possibly maybe kinda help with that tricksy keypad puzzle … while also illuminating some of the game world’s rich, deep lore.
The gas + brakes’ Q/E swap system wasn’t working right. But now it is. Your brake pedal no longer continues acting as a brake when you attach it to the gas and vice versa. Because why would it? It doesn’t KNOW that it’s a brake. It doesn’t know anything. It’s just a stupid pedal.
AC is no longer hovering a lil bit away from the car’s interior, and windscreen wipers now actually touch the windscreen. It’s frustrating enough when they don’t wipe properly in real life so we thought we’d save you from having to relive that horror here.
Can no longer see weird clipping from the wheels or when ragdolled because we removed the passenger’s x-ray vision.
Headlights now illuminate the environment as expected. You are now free to enjoy our gorgeous artistic vision in full glorious brightness.
Removed a bunch of redundant meshes throughout the level. Nobody likesh to look at a big messh.
The pillars and the cable traps in the plank section all connect properly now. It was ruining everyone’s immersion that the structure was somehow floating so we’ve glued pieces together and it’s now 100% realistic.
Adjusted some art on a billboard. Just straight up painted over it like that Jesus fresco in Spain.
No more gaps in the ceiling above the exit, and the bottom surface on the spiral/berm turn part is now visible. All the structural engineers who have been writing to us about these can breathe easy.
Got rid of the gap in the pipe before the "Here at GhostJam…" billboard. Really had to get this one sealed up. Who knows what was leaking out of there?!?
Added an extra category when launching the game: now has the options to launch in base DX11, DX12, or Potato Mode. We’re continuing to explore ways to make the game more accessible, so potato mode disables all that pointless fancy stuff to hopefully allow a better experience for people running the game on their fridge, their GameBoy, their in-car entertainment system (pls don’t do this), etc.
Compressed replicated variables. As you can see, this patch note comes from a programmer. After asking 4 times what it means, they simplified it to “netcode good now”.
Added a mouse sensitivity setting and a Vsync option. Every game should have these. What were we thinking.
Most recently-interacted objects no longer remain highlighted when swapping places. Because when you throw something away, you don’t want to think about it ever again.
Optimizations to AI cars. They were being a bit greedy with their calculations so, to teach them a lesson, we reduced their math allowance.
Gramma is less jittery when the client is playing as her. She’s picked up her prescription, finally.
The keys are now easier to select. Ever have that dream where you’re trying to grab something that’s right in front of you and it keeps slipping through your grasp? Yeah, we made this less like that.
See you on the Discord, and we'll come pick you up when it's time for the next one.
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Backseat Drivers, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Backseat Drivers statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.