I recently got the chance to try out Sonic Racing Crossworlds. Even as a diehard Mario Kart fan, I’ve got to admit that our favourite Italian plumber could only dream of the exciting stuff Sonic has in store. That being said, I’m still a little sceptical.
Kart racing fans are in for an absolute treat. Following the release of the excellent Switch 2 launch title, Mario Kart World, another top dog of the kart-racing genre’s set to come out in September. With Sonic Racing Crossworlds, Sega will be sending its speedy little mascot back onto the racetrack.
I got the chance to try out a few tracks and Grand Prix races on the PS5 during a press event at Gamescom. My initial verdict? I love it!
_Note: there’s a Sonic competition at the bottom of the page.
Sega’s taken a completely different approach to character selection than Nintendo has in Mario Kart World. While the selection of drivers in Nintendo’s racing game is limited to characters from the Mario universe, Sonic gets to go head to head with characters from other franchises.
Sega claims that Crossworlds has the widest selection of characters of any Sonic racing game to date. The final list – including DLC – reportedly features more than 50 playable characters. Alongside a bunch of characters from the Sonic games, guest appearances from Minecraft, Spongebob, Pac-Man, Hatsune Miku and Like a Dragon have already been confirmed.
Since I’m a huge fan of the Like a Dragon series, I obviously hit the demo’s racetrack as ex-Yakuza Ichiban Kasuga. It feels surreal to play one of my favourite characters from a «realistic» game against comic book characters like Sonic and Tails. Ichiban looks out of place on the brightly coloured tracks. In a good way, mind you – I like the visual contrast.
Sonic Racing Crossworlds also takes a different approach to kart selection than Mario. You can tune your vehicles the way you want and adapt them to your driving style – a feature the new Mario Kart is unfortunately lacking. Swapping out your wheels helps you to drift better, while changing the tail means you can fly through the air for longer. Sega says there are over 70;000(!) possible combinations. There are also numerous gimmicks for the aesthetics, such as colours and stickers that you can use to personalise your kart. You can even change your horn sound.
But that’s not all. You also have six gadget slots that you can fill before a race to give you an edge on the track. Gadgets giving you a more powerful advantage take up several slots, with weaker ones only occupying one. This allows you to combine gadgets and enhance your kart build even more. In the demo, I test gadgets that make it easier to perform stunts in mid-air, gadgets that make items bigger and gadgets that give me a faster drift boost.
Playing a quick demo isn’t enough to make a firm judgement on how much all these customisation options actually influence your driving experience and races. Still, one thing’s for certain: the flexible system encourages experimentation – and I find that exciting.
I play my way through two Grand Prix in the demo. I’m a big fan of the mini-game at the start of the races, which gives you a starting boost. Instead of pressing the gas button at a certain time like you would in Mario Kart, you have to position a pointer on a speedometer that appears on screen by carefully accelerating. If you accelerate too much, you’ll overshoot. Fail to hold down the gas for long enough, and you’ll miss out on the bonus.
During races, you get a boost by drifting or performing stunts in mid-air. It took a few laps for me to get used to the feel of driving on the tracks. With Ichiban and his dragon car, the controls feel significantly less precise than I’m used to from Mario Kart World. When I’m drifting especially, I feel like I’m slipping on ice. With every curve, I get a little more used to the looseness of the controls.
In the second Grand Prix, I ditch Ichiban and his beast of a car in favour of Sonic and a more traditional kart. And lo and behold, the blue hedgehog steers more precisely. I wonder whether it’s down to the car, the upgrades, the gadgets or the fact my skills are improving.
The racetracks are varied and full of exciting twists. Sometimes I drift around tight bends, fly through the air and then drive over water. As you’d expect from a kart racer, the items cause extra chaos on the track without getting on your nerves. Graphically speaking, the worlds look decent. That said, don’t expect any fireworks in that department. After all, the game’s also set to be released on last-gen consoles, including the Switch 1.
The thing that actually does feel «next-gen» is the crossworlds feature that gives the game its name. During the second lap of each race, all of the drivers on the course are teleported to a different dimension – a crossworld. It reminds me a bit of the seamless teleportation from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. The player in the lead then gets to choose between two random crossworlds. Once the third lap starts, you’re taken back to the main track.
On the PS5, you can switch between a crossworld and the main track without waiting for it to load. But will this key feature work just as smoothly on older hardware? I’m not convinced.
I really like this idea. The randomness of the crossworlds means you never know exactly what to expect from a race – even if you’ve driven the course before.
I also find some of the other gameplay twists refreshing. For example, there are bonus points up for grabs in some Grand Prix races, which you can use to make up for poor results in previous races. The rival system’s also been designed in a cool way. During every Grand Prix, you’re assigned a random rival who’s laser-focused on you. They give you a particularly tough time on the track, including throwing funny trash talk your way.
I wish I could’ve spent more time playing the game and trying out other modes (such as party mode, time trials and split screen). Fortunately though, I don’t have to wait much longer until the launch. If you fancy previewing the game too, you’re in luck. Between 29 August and 1 September, there’ll be an open network test for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch and PC. The game also supports cross-play between all consoles and PCs, so you can play with your friends regardless of which platform they have the game on.
Sonic Racing Crossworlds will be released on 25 September for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2 and PC. My colleague and Sonic fangirl Cassie will be writing a detailed review of the game.
I snapped up this cute Tails stuffed toy after playing Sonic Racing Crossworlds. And now, I want to give it to you! Yep, you read that right. YOU. If you’d like the toy, please answer the following question: which characters did I race as during my Gamescom demo?
There’s even more Gamescom merch up for grabs here:
My love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.
