Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is my most anticipated racer in ages

Confession time: I don’t have a huge connection to Sonic. While I’ve dabbled with his games over the years and really enjoy the live-action movies, my attachment to the series largely comes through the stellar music and one of my best friends, occasional MobileSyrup contributor and Sonic megafan Andrew Mohan.

And yet, I find myself very much looking forward to Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. After playing the game at both Summer Game Fest in June and Gamescom last week, I’m happy to say it’s shaping up to one hell of a kart racer.

First and foremost, I love that Sega is positioning it as an even grander crossover event than its predecessors, with a roster of over 50 racers including DLC. For context, previous Sonic Racing games featured fellow Sega franchises like Nights, Virtua Fighter and Shenmue alongside zany third-party guests like Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph and real-life NASCAR racer Danica Patrick.

CrossWorlds, though, is taking that idea and running with it, almost becoming a Super Smash Bros.-like extravaganza in the process, thanks to the likes of Sega-owned characters Ichiban (Like a Dragon), Joker (Persona 5) and Hatsune Miku and glorious third-party inclusions like Bandai Namco’s Pac-Man and Microsoft’s Steve (Minecraft).

Now to be clear, I’m not hot on all of the confirmed crossovers so far. The fact that there are already several Nickelodeon characters on the way from SpongeBob, Avatar: The Last Airbender and TMNT feels like overkill. I’d much rather those spots be put towards other Sega characters or guests from other franchises, like we’re getting with Pac-Man and Steve.

But on the whole, I love the big crossover approach to Sonic Racing. It addresses one of my big disappointments with Mario Kart World beyond its painfully lacklustre open-world: the lack of guest characters. Honestly, their omission just felt too glaring after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe so famously included Nintendo icons like The Legend of Zelda‘s Link and Animal Crossing‘s Villager. I’m not saying Mario Kart needed to become some Smash Bros.-esque “Nintendo Kart” or anything (though I certainly think that could be very cool!), but it felt like a missed opportunity to not do anything else with guest characters.

These kinds of platform racers are all about pure entertainment, and a big part of that fun comes from having all kinds of characters to choose from, especially when they span the entire gaming ecosystem. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds gets that, and the fact that Sega is promising many more post-launch racers, including regular free ones from its own games, makes it only more exciting.

During my Gamescom demo, I got to experience some of these characters in action. As the ever-delightful Ichiban, I got a kick out of performing all kinds of kart spins and flips as I went off ramps using the tight and responsive tricks system, with the yakuza member excitedly grooving and cheering all the way. Meanwhile, Hatsune Miku brings that chibi cuteness with her own little dances and vocaloid sounds.

Adding even more personality to the game is the rival system in the Grand Prix. At the start of this mode, you’ll be randomly assigned a “rival,” who you’re challenged to beat for additional rewards. To enhance the competitive feeling, your racer and rival will have special interactions with one another as you go. It introduces a nice wrinkle to races where you have a compelling additional objective besides simply coming in first, and it encourages you to use different racers to see the different banter. (Naturally, this only makes the inclusion of guest characters even more promising.)

The other novel part about CrossWorlds is its eponymous race-altering mechanic. In the second lap, the top player can choose between two special “Travel Rings” to transport everyone to one of 15 different tracks containing various “Frenzy” modifiers. It’s an ingenious way to shake up the flow of races and even throw off those who are trailing the lead racer while still giving others a chance to catch up by using the modifiers.

All of this comes together to create a gleefully chaotic racer that will grow over time through exciting content updates. And the fact that this is a multiplatform game with cross-play means it has a far wider reach than Mario Kart or the upcoming Kirby Air Riders, ensuring that I can play with my friends no matter what system they have.

Best of all, we don’t have to wait long. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will launch on September 25 on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. A proper Switch 2 version will also come later in the year.

Image credit: Sega