Like the initial Crash Team Racing, Nitro Fueled is a racing game featuring characters from the Crash Bandicoot series. Players must avoid obstacles and navigate the various tracks to reach the finish line, performing boosts via power sliding and jumping to gain speed, and using power-ups scattered across the track to give themselves a boost or hinder their opponents. The game supports local quick races and grand prix circuits, multiple battle modes, and online multiplayer, as well as featuring a full adventure mode with new areas, characters and boss battles being unlocked as the player progresses.

Nintendo Switch CTR – Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, includes all of the content from Crash Team Racing, along with several new features not present in the initial game, including online multiplayer and the ability to choose different karts, which can be customized by the player. The adventure mode has also been tweaked: in addition to new cinematic cutscenes being added, players can choose between “Classic” and “Nitro-Fueled” adventure modes, the latter of which allows players to change their character and kart between races, as well as choose between three difficulty levels. An additional “Ring Rally” mode was added as part of a post-launch update, in which players must pass through rings on a track to gain time extensions and prevent a timer from expiring. Nitro-Fueled also adds a substantial amount of content from Crash Nitro Kart, including all of its characters, race tracks, battle arenas, karts and battle modes. Additional characters, karts and character skins from Crash Tag Team Racing are included as well. This and other new content is accessible via the Pit Stop, an in-game shop that allows players to purchase unlockables using Wumpa Coins earned through gameplay or obtained via microtransactions.

Nintendo Switch CTR – Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled featured limited-time Grand Prix events that took place monthly following the game’s launch. Each event was accompanied by a free update that added a new race track to the game. Players could compete in special challenges on these new tracks during the event period to earn Nitro Points; by acquiring a certain number of points, they would be able to unlock new characters, karts, and customization items. If players were unable to obtain enough points before the event concluded, the content was made available for purchase in the Pit Stop three months after the event’s conclusion. A total of eight Grand Prix events were held between July 2019 and March 2020, though one final wave of new content was released after their conclusion.