The game features original music from CoLD SToRAGE, with tracks by Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital appearing on some versions.

[9] Wipeout features a multiplayer mode using the PlayStation Link Cable, allowing two player to race against each other and the six remaining AI competitors.

[2][11] According to Lee Carus, one of the artists, Wipeout took 14 months to develop, and the concept began as a conversation between Nick Burcombe and Jim Bowers at a pub in Oxton, Merseyside.

[11] Aimed at a fashionable, club-going, music-buying audience, Keith Hopwood and The Designers Republic created art for the packaging, in-game branding, and other promotional materials.

[12] The vehicle designs were based on Matrix Marauders, a 3D grid-based strategy game whose concept was developed by Bowers and released for the Amiga in 1990.

[17] A marketing campaign created and launched by Keith Hopwood and The Designers Republic included an infamous promotional poster, featuring a bloodstained television and radio presenter Sara Cox, which was accused by some of depicting a drug overdose.

Designer Nick Burcombe recounted how playing Super Mario Kart while listening to heavy techno music inspired the idea of creating a game with high-speed, hovering ships racing through futuristic tracks set to a driving electronic soundtrack.

[14] For the game's concept demo movie, the team selected the big beat band The Prodigy's track "No Good (Start the Dance)," with Psygnosis artist Jim Bowers noting that the song was chosen “because of the pace of it really fitting with the action on screen.”[24] Composer Tim Wright, also known as CoLD SToRAGE, was brought on to create the game’s music but initially struggled to adapt his synth-pop background to the "future UK" sound of big beat and techno envisioned by the team.

[25] This style, characterised by heavy loops and basslines, breakbeats, big beats, and dramatic builds and drops, was key to evoking the energy of rave culture.

[25] Despite initial reluctance from record companies to work with the gaming industry,[12] Wipeout’s PlayStation version featured music from notable electronic artists including Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital.

[30] GamePro gave the PlayStation version a rave review, predicting that "Wipeout's taut action and grueling courses will lure many diehard racing fans to this new system."

[33] Maximum opined that of all the games in the PlayStation's European launch line-up, "not one title can match up to the awesome nature of Psygnosis' WipeOut.

It's an amazing spectacle to behold, it sounds absolutely fantastic and it's the best playing racing game yet beheld on a next generation super console."

Making particular note of the lack of pop-up, the coherent style and concept, the soundtrack, the unlockable Rapier mode, and the PAL optimisation,[35] they gave it their "Maximum Game of the Month" award.

In Sega Saturn Magazine, Rad Automatic praised the large number of tracks and the distinctive flavour of each one, and remarked that the gameplay is very easy to get into but provides more than enough challenge.

"[52] Writer Adam Ismail described Wipeout as a "cultural force," a game "where the music and visual style were as crucial—if not, arguably more so—than the physical experience of actually playing it.

"[53] In 2023, CoLD SToRAGE's soundtrack was remastered, rereleased, and pressed onto vinyl for the first time, with added remixes from contemporary electronic artists such as Kode9 and μ-Ziq.

"[60] In 2023, an art book entitled WipEout: Futurism was announced to be published in 2024, focused on commemorating the game's artistic and graphic style.