NASCAR Unleashed is an arcade racing game, allowing players to play as 15 different drivers in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing series, and race around six locations, including Chicagoland Speedway, Daytona International Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Martinsville Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway, and a fictional track named Unleashed Speedway. Each location has multiple layouts, which accounts for 12 different track layouts.
As with the previous two Wii NASCAR games, Kart Racing and The Game: 2011, the Wii version of Unleashed leverages the Wii Remote's versatility and motion controls to offer multiple control schemes, but unlike them, it does not support the GameCube controller.