Marigolds Light the Track as Coco Takes Over Disney Speedstorm Season 22

The road to the Land of the Dead is apparently wide enough for racing karts. Season 22: Bridge of Marigolds launches in Disney Speedstorm on September 24 , bringing the world of Disney and Pixar’s Coco into Gameloft’s combat racer with Miguel Rivera, Héctor Rivera and Ernesto de la Cruz leadi

The road to the Land of the Dead is apparently wide enough for racing karts. Season 22: Bridge of Marigolds launches in Disney Speedstorm on September 24, bringing the world of Disney and Pixar’s Coco into Gameloft’s combat racer with Miguel Rivera, Héctor Rivera and Ernesto de la Cruz leading a new collection of characters, tracks and progression changes.

The season trailer focuses heavily on atmosphere. Glowing marigolds illuminate the road, enormous structures rise from the Land of the Dead and the colorful supernatural architecture of Coco is transformed into another high-speed Disney Speedstorm environment. The three new Racers are naturally at the center of the celebration, but Bridge of Marigolds is considerably larger than its Pixar theme suggests.

Season 22 also introduces Augments, three new Race Types, a rebalanced Racer progression curve, two additional Super Karts, new Adventure Road collections, a Growth Fund and further expansions to Albums, Cards, Racer Boost and Supercharge. After the Encanto-themed Madrigal Miracle season, Gameloft is using Coco as the visual headline for an update that changes several underlying systems at the same time.

Miguel, Héctor and Ernesto Bring Three Different Racing Styles

Rather than filling the new roster with characters belonging to similar archetypes, Bridge of Marigolds spreads its three Coco Racers across different classes and rarities. Miguel Rivera arrives as an Epic Speedster, Héctor Rivera joins as a Rare Trickster and Ernesto de la Cruz enters the competition as a Common Brawler.

Those classifications immediately suggest different roles on the track. Speedsters traditionally emphasize maintaining momentum and exploiting speed advantages, Tricksters are built around disruptive tools and skill interactions, while Brawlers favor physical confrontation and stunning opponents. The exact competitive strength of each newcomer will depend on their final statistics, Unique Skills, Crew combinations and the new Augment system, but the class distribution gives players three distinct approaches rather than variations of one template.

Gameloft is also staggering their dedicated Tale events rather than releasing all three character-focused activities simultaneously. Miguel’s Tale runs from September 30 to October 6, Héctor follows from October 15 to 21, and Ernesto receives his event from November 5 to 11. That schedule gives the Coco content a presence across much of Season 22 instead of concentrating everything around launch week.

The structure also mirrors the relationship between the three characters in the film. Miguel provides the emotional center, Héctor brings chaotic energy and Ernesto represents a much more imposing presence. Those identities fit surprisingly cleanly into Speedster, Trickster and Brawler archetypes.

The Land of the Dead Becomes a Racing Circuit

The new environment is likely to be the most immediately recognizable part of the season. Gameloft has adapted the Land of the Dead into a full Disney Speedstorm racing location, translating one of Coco’s most visually distinctive settings into the exaggerated geometry required by an arcade racer.

The trailer highlights glowing bridges, warm orange marigolds, saturated neon lighting and densely layered architecture stretching into the distance. Instead of recreating one specific sequence from the movie, the track appears designed to capture the broader visual language of the Land of the Dead while leaving enough room for ramps, shortcuts, drifts and Speedstorm’s usual combat interactions.

That approach has worked well for the game’s strongest Disney environments. Rather than forcing film locations into conventional racetrack shapes, Gameloft tends to exaggerate them until familiar places can support high-speed routes and multiple layouts. Season 21 did the same with Encanto, while previous seasons have transformed everything from Andy’s Room to Never Land into competitive circuits.

Coco may be particularly suited to that philosophy because the Land of the Dead already operates on exaggerated scale. Its bridges, towers and impossible vertical layering require less conceptual compromise to become an arcade racing environment than a more grounded Disney setting might.

Augments Could Change Far More Than the New Racers

The most important new system in Season 22 may have nothing specifically to do with Coco. Augments are being introduced as equippable items that can modify Racer statistics or create new gameplay effects during a race.

Every Racer has access to up to six Augment Slots, which gradually unlock as that character is upgraded. Unlike Crew Members, Augments are not tied to individual Racers, meaning an unlocked Augment can potentially be used across the wider roster.

There are two broad categories. Stat Augments create trade-offs by increasing one statistic while reducing another—for example, improving Acceleration at the expense of Handling. Higher-rarity versions produce stronger statistical effects, allowing players to push a Racer further toward a particular specialization but potentially magnifying the associated weakness.

The second category is much more experimental. Special-effect Augments can award a Power-Up after completing enough aerial stunts, completely restore Nitro while temporarily increasing Top Speed when starting a lap in last place, unlock a second Skill Slot or increase the points earned through certain Events, Multiplayer League or Ranked activities.

Those effects introduce variables that do not exist within the normal Crew and stat system, meaning Augment selection could eventually become an important part of building a Racer around a particular mode or strategy.

Augments Come With Their Own Upgrade Grind

The system also introduces another progression layer. Many Augments can be upgraded through five Tiers, with players needing 10 Augment Shards to unlock the item before collecting additional Shards to improve it. Higher tiers strengthen the effect or extend how long it remains active.

Other Augments function differently. Some have no upgrade tiers at all and instead require 50 Shards for their initial unlock, at which point they immediately operate at full effectiveness.

Because every equipped Augment consumes one slot regardless of rarity, the system is not simply about filling the loadout with the rarest items available. The more important question should become how individual effects interact with a Racer’s existing class, Unique Skill, Crew setup and Super Kart.

That potentially adds considerable build complexity to a game that has steadily expanded beyond its original Racer-plus-Crew progression model.

Early Racer Progression Is Becoming Faster

Season 22 also rebalances the recently introduced six-Star progression system. Gameloft is reducing the number of Racer Shards and Tune Coins required to reach four Stars, while increasing the requirements for Stars five and six.

The total cost of fully maximizing a character does not change. Taking a Racer from zero to six Stars will still require 260 Racer Shards and 26,000 Tune Coins, but significantly more of that expense is being shifted toward the later stages.

Under the new structure, reaching four Stars requires 28 fewer Racer Shards than before. Tune Coin requirements for zero-to-four-Star progression fall from 14,800 to 12,000, saving 2,800 Tune Coins during the early progression curve.

That matters because meaningful functionality is often attached to progression milestones. By moving more of the expense toward the endgame, newer or recently unlocked characters should reach competitively useful states more quickly even though fully maximizing them remains equally expensive overall.

It is essentially a redistribution rather than a reduction: getting a Racer online becomes easier, while perfecting that Racer becomes more demanding.

Three New Race Types Make Season 22 Much Less Predictable

Bridge of Marigolds is also expanding race variety with Power-Up Time, Brain Hack and Arbee Says, three new Race Types designed to interfere with normal racing behavior.

Power-Up Time periodically gives every Racer a random Power-Up, increasing the frequency of combat and making item management less dependent on reaching conventional pick-up locations. Brain Hack immediately inverts everyone’s controls, turning basic muscle memory into the primary enemy. Arbee Says repeatedly gives players objectives during the race; completing them before the deadline awards a speed boost, while failure results in a stun.

These modes will appear across Adventure Road, Season Tour, Tournaments, Tales, Time-Limited Events, Private Lobbies and Local Freeplay. Gameloft is simultaneously expanding several existing Race Types—including Color Match, Follow the Leader, Fog Challenge, Single Skill and Floating Objects—into more activities.

The more competitive formats remain protected from that additional randomness. Solo and Team Multiplayer, Ranked and Grand Prix will not support Race Types, keeping their basic rulesets more consistent.

That division makes sense. Strange modifiers can make single-player and casual content more varied without forcing serious multiplayer players to adapt their ranking to inverted controls or mandatory mid-race objectives.

Two More Super Karts Expand the Class System

Super Karts continue their gradual rollout with two more additions in Season 22: the Pumpkinhead Kart for Tricksters and Autumn Storm Kart for Defenders.

Introduced in Season 20, Super Karts are more than cosmetic vehicles. They provide Passive and Active Skills that stack with the Racer’s own abilities, effectively adding another gameplay layer to eligible characters. They have their own Shards, can be upgraded through three Stars using Bolt Coins and visually evolve as they improve.

Season 21 expanded the system with Super Karts for Speedsters and Brawlers while also removing the original requirement that a Racer needed at least three Stars before using one. Bridge of Marigolds continues that expansion rather than leaving Super Karts as a limited seasonal experiment.

The result is an increasingly layered loadout structure. A Racer can now combine their inherent class and Unique Skill with Crew Members, Super Kart effects and Augments, producing significantly more room for specialization than Disney Speedstorm offered during its earlier seasons.

Player Journey Gets a New Paid Growth Fund

Another new progression feature is the Growth Fund, which adds extra rewards to Player Journey milestones.

Players can purchase different Growth Funds covering different Rank ranges, with additional bonuses unlocking as the relevant milestones are reached. Gameloft has not positioned the system as replacing the existing journey rewards; instead, it functions as an additional paid reward track layered on top of normal progression.

Its introduction continues the game’s increasingly dense structure of Passes, progression tracks and optional reward systems. Season 22 still retains the usual seasonal format, but the Growth Fund gives long-term account progression another monetized layer separate from an individual Racer or seasonal collection.

How worthwhile that feels will ultimately depend on the exact reward-to-price ratio offered in each fund, something players will be able to judge more effectively once the Season 22 storefront is live.

The Season Pass Looks Beyond Coco

Despite the visual theme, the Season Pass itself is not limited to the new film collection. Part 1 features Kuzco and Anna, while Part 2 includes Yzma and Oswald.

Diamond Pass Max Out choices similarly draw from across Disney Speedstorm’s existing catalogue. Part 1 offers Queen of Hearts, Chip, Rapunzel or Eeyore, while Part 2 switches to Dale, Lotso, Baymax, Forky or Snow White.

That broader selection reinforces the way recent Speedstorm seasons operate. A film or franchise provides the headline characters and environment, but the surrounding progression systems increasingly pull from the entire game rather than functioning as completely isolated themed expansions.

Adventure Road follows the same pattern. Season 22 adds Winnie the Pooh and The Nightmare Before Christmas collections, while Captain Hook and Tinker Bell join Racer Boost. The list of available Supercharge Racers expands with Gaston, Will Turner, King Triton, Judy Hopps, Queen of Hearts, Maui and Fozzie.

Cards and Albums Continue Expanding After Their Season 21 Debut

Season 21 introduced Cards and Albums as another collection system, and Gameloft is wasting little time expanding it.

New Season 22 Albums and Cards will cover The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story, Frozen and Winnie the Pooh. Cards are collected into themed Albums that provide rewards as players complete their sets, giving older franchise collections another reason to remain relevant even when they are not the focus of the current season.

This reflects a larger trend across Disney Speedstorm’s recent updates. Rather than simply adding three characters and a circuit every couple of months, the team has been layering persistent systems onto the game: Super Karts in Season 20, Cards and Albums in Season 21, and now Augments and the Growth Fund in Season 22.

That creates considerably more long-term progression, although it also makes the overall economy more complicated for new or returning players. Racer Shards, Tune Coins, Crew, Cards, Albums, Super Karts, Bolt Coins, Augment Shards and multiple Pass structures now overlap within the same free-to-play ecosystem.

Disney Villains Get Their Own Season 22 Spotlight

The Coco celebration will share space with another established Disney collection. Season 22 introduces Disney Villains Tournaments and a Vault Pass, with Shan Yu, Mother Gothel and Yokai confirmed as Tournament Racers.

That creates a thematic counterpoint to the family-centered Bridge of Marigolds material while continuing to recycle existing collections through new progression opportunities.

It is also another example of Speedstorm’s current content strategy. New franchises provide the headline additions, but older Racers are repeatedly brought back through Tournament rotations, Adventure Road, Racer Boost, Supercharge and Pass systems rather than being allowed to disappear beneath an ever-growing roster.

For a live-service racing game approaching dozens of Disney and Pixar properties, that reuse is increasingly important. Simply adding new Racers without creating reasons to revisit older ones would make much of the roster progressively irrelevant.

Bridge of Marigolds Is More Than a Coco Crossover

The easiest way to describe Season 22 is that Coco is joining Disney Speedstorm, and visually that is exactly what the trailer sells. Miguel, Héctor and Ernesto are racing beneath glowing marigolds while the Land of the Dead becomes another spectacular Disney circuit.

Underneath that presentation, however, Bridge of Marigolds represents another substantial systems update.

Augments create an entirely new layer of Racer customization. Early progression becomes faster while max-level investment moves further toward the endgame. Race Types spread into considerably more activities. Super Karts continue expanding, Growth Funds add another progression track, and Cards, Albums, Adventure Road and Supercharge all receive new material.

That makes September 24 important for more than three additional characters. Season 22 continues the transformation of Disney Speedstorm from a relatively straightforward character-based kart racer into an increasingly complex live-service racing game built around multiple overlapping progression systems.

The marigolds may be what lights the road into the new season, but there is considerably more waiting on the other side of the bridge.