Growing up, I was a huge Sega Genesis fan. Naturally, I’ve remained a big fan of Sonic all these years later, and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds isn’t just the latest racing game featuring the Blue Blur; it’s his best to date.
Nintendo’s Mario Kart World released alongside the Switch 2 earlier this year and helped propel it to record-breaking status in just a few short weeks. But for anyone who has played that game, you might agree that it gets bland very quickly. For me, the open world feels empty and lacking in compelling reasons to explore; tracks themselves are fun but mostly feel like more of the same; and the lack of vehicle customization leaves the massive roster of characters feeling underwhelming.
I personally had fun with Mario Kart World for a couple of weeks, but I haven’t played it much since. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, on the other hand, is a game I could see myself returning to again and again just for fun. (In game industry talk, we call that engagement, and it usually means good things for long-term revenues and consumer loyalty).
Sega seems to know it’s got something special here, because the social media team’s recent post features a direct callback to old Sega Genesis marketing campaigns like “Welcome to the Next Level.”
In fact, this week’s post directly pokes fun at Mario Kart World with a blurred-out clip of the game running on an older TV and the caption stating to “leave the open road behind,” just like the Sega of the ‘90s would poke fun at Mario as well. Nothing’s wrong with a little friendly competition, right?
Gotta race fast
The first Sonic racing game, Sonic Drift, was released exclusively for the Sega Game Gear handheld all the way back in 1994, and it only came out in Japan (until it was later included in compilation collections for modern platforms, such as in Sonic Origins Plus). Over 30 years later, this newest game is the best one yet, and it has me excited for what’s coming next. It’s a lesson in how to make a gaming franchise sustainable — and to not take your longtime fans for granted.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds takes everything I loved about Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed back on the PlayStation 3, cranks up the intensity, and adds tons of new gameplay mechanics and features to really turn everything on its head in exciting ways.
Just like in Racing Transformed, racers will transition between land, sea, and air vehicles naturally over the course of a race. But where things get really interesting is the all-new CrossWorlds mechanic.
At the end of the first lap of a race, two portals called travel rings appear, and whoever is in first place at that time gets to select a portal. One portal will show a preview of another track, and the other is random. Once a portal is selected, the whole second lap of a race takes place on that new track, hence the “CrossWorlds” subtitle. This mechanic feels incredibly creative because it ensures that you’ll rarely have two identical experiences on a course since there are 15 different possible CrossWorlds that could appear on each of the 24 tracks.
These travel rings are reminiscent of the same portals Sonic and friends go through in the trilogy of blockbuster films. It shows that, even after decades in the market, it’s still possible to come up with innovations in an established genre.
All of the mechanics you’d expect to find in an arcade-style racing game, such as weapon pickups, boost pads, and wacky last-second lead changes near the finish line, are here in fantastic fashion, but the game design surrounding the familiar elements is what elevates things beyond being just another Sonic racing game.
There’s also a fun “rival” feature, in which a random character is designated as your rival throughout a Grand Prix. This character will banter with you back and forth over all four courses and has a habit of always being a bit better than everyone else on the track. It’s a great dynamic that adds some intensity even on the lower difficulty levels.
Sega has always been great about honoring its past, and the deep cuts for the Sonic franchise are great to see at launch. However, I do hope to see even more characters from Sega history in the near future.
Just keep racing
The amount of depth available in terms of customization is staggering. Not only can you fine-tune your vehicle by mixing and maxxing parts that each boost different stats like handling, speed, or acceleration, but you can also change the colors and place decals to decorate your vehicle as well. Combined with the fact that every character has its own strengths and weaknesses, there’s a lot of strategy that goes into crafting the perfect ride. Depth, of course, is key to getting players to come back and try new things.
Especially when you factor in the gadget system. As you complete races and increase your rank, you unlock gadget slots that affect all sorts of aspects. Some options make boost items appear more frequently, some options might make you more effective at ramming into opponents, or other options may let you start the race with a specific item. There’s a lot of depth here, and as you uncover more and more layers, the excitement continues to build.
Admittedly, I found it difficult to reap the rewards of mastering a character build that wasn’t focused on speed. Perhaps it’s intentional, but I had much more difficulty getting first place in races as a character optimized around boosting, for example. From my perspective, there is little reason to pick anyone other than Sonic, Shadow, and other similar speed-type characters. More nuance or understanding of how each stat impacts the race could have helped.
Fans from the PlayStation 2 era of Sonic Racing games, like Sonic Riders, may also be happy to know that hover boards are back and in full force here. You can put any character on any hover board or in any vehicle, change the colors, swap parts, and get creative with it. I found myself almost always choosing to race on a hover board, mostly for the cool factor. This is a Sonic game, after all.
Beyond the core Grand Prix mode, there’s also Time Attack for any course, typical online World Match multiplayer races, and an interesting Race Park party mode. You can play Race Park locally or online, and it includes several custom race types, one of which is even similar to Team Sonic Racing. It’s a really good way to mix things up instead of just doing the same types of races over and over.
Crossovers and more coming soon
At the time of release, the advertised crossover characters like Hatsune Miku, Ichiban Kasuga from the Like A Dragon series, and Joker from the Persona series are not in the game, but will be coming soon as free updates. Later on, paid updates will also unlock characters like Steve from Minecraft, SpongeBob SquarePants, Pac-Man, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Nickelodeon’s Avatar. Tracks and vehicles from those properties will be added as well.
There’s a lot of crossover and DLC potential here, so it seems like Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds could have a very bright future and long lifespan as more than just a one-off release.
Depending on Sega’s post-launch support plans, I could see a significant amount of investment poured into maintaining this game with new characters, worlds, vehicles, and even game modes several months or years from now. Especially since it supports fully cross-platform multiplayer immediately at launch.
The trick to finding success with this game as a pseudo-live service will be delivering something that first and foremost feels complete and brimming with content from day one before transitioning to post-launch plans. From what I’ve seen, I think they’ve nailed that balance. Now, maintaining a strong release cadence with crossovers that make sense and feel appropriate can take this one really far. Particularly in a world where other kart racers, such as Nintendo’s Mario Kart, aren’t going to have crossovers outside of their own IP.
Conclusion
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, in many ways, feels like the cure to a problem a lot of people may not realize exists yet. While there are lots of choices these days for arcade-style racing games, even if you look specifically at lighthearted kart racers, many of them are lacking in new ideas.
For decades now, we’ve mostly been playing the same core concept reskinned with different characters, but CrossWorlds feels different. It’s bold, creative, and ambitious in ways many kart racers aren’t, and that’s commendable. Sega has always been willing to roll the dice on new ideas and innovate in exciting ways, so it’s great to see that continue with their flagship character.
During my playthrough, I finished with a gold medal on all of the Grand Prix sets on the base normal difficulty, completed gold on the harder difficulty for a few, tried out Time Attack and Race Park, unlocked several customization options, experimented with different gadget builds, and participated in scheduled online sessions to try out multiplayer modes. I also played locally with my eight-year-old son to try out splitscreen multiplayer. In total, I spent around 15 hours with the game before writing this review.
This is a really great example of how to both play it safe with a formula that has a history of being popular among fans, but also inject enough new ideas to keep things interesting and unpredictable. This not only enhances the replayability, but makes it immediately impressive for anyone picking up the controller for the first time with the game.
The races are fast, the tracks are fun, and the variety of modes is refreshing. I definitely recommend this one strongly to anyone who likes Sonic, enjoys having some fun with friends, or wants to put their drifting skills to the test.
Rating: 4.5 / 5
Disclosure: A representative on behalf of Sega sent me a digital download code for this game for the purposes of this review. The game will be available with cross-platform multiplayer for PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2 on September 25, 2025. I played on a PlayStation 5 Pro.