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Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Drops The Best Aspects Of Its Predecessors

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is fun, but it feels a little too much like other kart racers. The follow-up to Team Sonic Racing aims to combine its predecessor's formula with the more competitive make-up of the Sonic Riders games, but the culmination lacks both the cooperative nature of the first game and thrilling sense of speed of Riders or Zero Gravity. All that's left is a game that plays fine, but feels like a lesser version of arcade racer juggernaut Mario Kart. CrossWorlds might have been better off solely building on the teamwork focus of Team Sonic Racing (or, better yet, giving us a true follow-up to Zero Gravity that isn't built around gimmicky motion controls).

If you have played any kart racer, you already have an idea as to how CrossWorlds works. Like its contemporaries, you pick a character and a kart for them to drive, and then after a brief countdown, do your best to drive around a track a set number of times while going over jumps, drifting around corners, and smashing into glowing boxes that reward you with an item to use to mess with other players. The first to finish the race wins.

CrossWorlds' main gimmick is how each track can cross into another--when the player currently in first place finishes their first lap, they can choose to drive into one of two portals, each of which provides a clear view of a different track on another world. Whichever portal the player picks decides the outcome for everyone, and the second lap is then run on the new track. As lap three begins, the race returns to whatever the original track was.

At Summer Game Fest 2025, I played a demo that showcased the CrossWorlds' Grand Prix mode, trying it on easy as Jet the Hawk and then again on normal with Amy Rose. Like Grand Prix modes in other racers, this saw me competing in back-to-back races, earning a set number of points for the place I took in each one. CrossWorlds' take on the formula is three races on three different tracks, concluding with a fourth race where lap one is the first track in the series, lap two is the second track, and so on. There's also a "rival" feature, where the game told me which opponent was my rival, and I'd earn extra points for ensuring I at least finished ahead of that character.

All in all, I had a good time. Racers like this are always more exciting with friends than computers, so despite the game repeatedly reminding me that so-and-so was my rival, I just couldn't muster up the level of hatred in my heart for an AI-controlled opponent that I do for my back-stabbing "friends" who use a well-timed item to take away a hard-fought victory. But I couldn't help but compare CrossWorlds to Mario Kart. The changing maps and rival character are neat, but they don't add anything to the experience that fundamentally changes how you race.

Several guest characters will be included in the playable roster, including Persona 5's Joker and Minecraft's Steve.

It's such a shame how large a departure CrossWorlds is from its predecessor, Team Sonic Racing. The main gimmick of Team Sonic Racing was that every player was racing as part of a team. For example, whichever member of the team was in front would leave behind a draft their allies could use to speed up. There was this great back-and-forth, pull-and-push nature to the gameplay, which didn't exist in other mainstream competitors. Being a good racer was still important, but it was crucial to work in tandem with your teammates to maintain your top speed. It was a new way to play a kart racer.

I think there's a lot that a sequel could have built upon that foundation, especially as a means to differentiate itself from Mario Kart, which CrossWorlds is clearly trying to emulate. Alternatively, if the teamwork element had to be abandoned in the sequel, going even further and switching to the Riders formula might have also worked. That game leaned into Sonic's legendary speed to deliver another arcade racer that's all about going almost uncontrollably fast, while needing to strategically weigh the risks of pushing forward or replenishing your fuel. That focus would also have been a fantastic way to stand out from similar racers.

By taking the middle ground, CrossWorlds doesn't rise to the level of what's come before. It's still fun, but any sort of unique flavoring it could have brought to the genre feels absent. Granted, there might be a lot more to the game than what I played at Summer Game Fest--if so, that could change my mind about it.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is set to launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC on September 25. A Switch 2 version of the game is also in the works, but no release date has been confirmed.