Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds - Egged On (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- 3 hours ago
- 12 min read
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
Released: September 25th, 2025
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Systems: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Switch, Xbox X/S
I’m a bugger for a Sonic spine-off. That was a legitimate typo and not a hedgehog pun, but I’m going to take credit for in anyway.
Anyway, while my opinion of the mainline series fluctuates and seems out of sync with Sonic’s more aggressive fans, I’m all for the side projects. They’ve been in my good graces ever since Sonic did a tennis game with the dwarf from Golden Axe in it. I’ve quite liked the racing games too, the mobile version being one I became inordinately hooked on in 2019.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is another such racer, and in terms of pure gameplay I’d say it’s easily the best. The phrase “buttery smooth” makes me cringe, but it’s an appropriate description of how this feels to play. When merely steering a vehicle is its own pleasant experience, you can be fairly confident you have a good racing game on your hands.
This is indeed a very good arcade racer. It’s biggest issues are longevity and consistency of content, but the core racing action carries it across a huge distance.
Between Sega and Nintendo, it appears that self-contained racetracks have become rather unfashionable - the big gimmick here is that races take place across more than one stage in a manner evocative of Mario Kart World. Unlike World, however, it doesn’t blend tracks across a single map but instead splices one into another.
It offers a series of separate racetracks like a normal racing game, except lap two is always preceded by a dimension gate thing. This gate warps you to an entirely different location, a so-called CrossWorld, before returning you to the original track for a final lap. Each CrossWorld is determined by the game offering two options and the lead racer literally picking a lane.
There are quite a few tracks exclusively featured as CrossWorlds, which helps to contrive a sense of unpredictability. This is further aided by the main course adding new obstacles and opportunities when you return, so lap three still manages to feel a bit different. All these elements are a nice way of keeping races fresh and varied while still having tracks that feel distinct.
Much of the usual kart racer schtick is in place - accelerating rings, speed pads, items for offense and defense, all that jazz. As I said, controlling the vehicles is a particular delight, with even the more unwieldy ones handling well. Drifting in particular has a level of control not ordinarily seen, and every element has this tangible fluidity to it.
It’s fucking creamy, mate.
When it comes to items, CrossWorlds strikes a careful balance between skill and luck, providing just enough random chaos to keep things interesting. Not to bring up Mario Kart World again, but victory doesn’t come down to who’s jammy enough to score a ridiculously overpowered advantage in the last few seconds of a race.
That’s not to say you won’t ever have moments where misfortune sets you back significantly or outright screws you, but the array of boosters, rockets, mines, and even CrossWorlds’ spectral Blue Shell equivalent aren’t enough on their own to be ruinous. Speed penalties are kept fairly subtle and you have enough defense and attack options to make every position competitive.
While having your car temporarily cut in half by a shuriken is bad, it’s not like getting squashed by three mushroom-roided karts in a literal row. Balancing this kind of racer can be remarkably difficult, but I think Sonic Team nailed it.
My main issue with items is more stylistic than anything else. With so many iconic enemies and hazards throughout the series, items taking the form of boxing gloves and heater shields is a missed opportunity. Some are represented by Sonic Colors’ Wisps as they’ve been in the past, and there are two Chao items, but their presence is reduced in favor of less original stuff.
In keeping with the game’s focus on surprise, a CrossWorld will sometimes be subject to Frenzy, which either fills the track with boost rings, gives everyone a reusable boost Wisp, turbocharges drifting, or just spawns an excess of item boxes. It’s a fun little moment that pops up across all modes, and I’d love to see more emergent stuff like this occur during second laps.
There’s a bunch of changes from previous Sonic Racing titles, ranging from small tweaks to mechanical overhauls. Certain features, such as slipstreaming (accelerating in the wake of a driver in front of you) have been appropriated from other genre titles and put to good use, making for a game that feels much more “feature complete” than prior entries.
Quickly skidding from left to right causes your Drift Gauge to drop a ways rather than consistently fill for a boost, a measure taken to disincentivize the divisive “snaking” tactic. Snaking is still possible, it’s just not as worth it. I like this, mainly because I feel snaking can often go against the spirit of a racer by focusing on a meta tactic rather than engaging with tracks as designed, but that’s just me.
Racing on water has been altered quite a bit. It’s harder to control, but you can charge your Drift Gauge without drifting, and doing so gives you a jumping motion along with your speed bonus. Flight mode segments are similarly less smooth but can make for good takeover moments with skillful boosting. Neither feel anywhere near as good as driving on land, but the added variety isn’t unwelcome.
Stunts during jumps are highly improved by ditching the penalty for doing one too close to the road. Reckless stunts used to be punished with a crash landing but you can spam the newly minted Air Tricks until touchdown. I get a ton of satisfaction from jump stunts in kart racers, and they’re way more fun when I can spin like mad without having to worry about landing.
There’s one major drawback to spamming Air Tricks - each driver uses one of a mere two voice clips for every trick rapidly performed. It’s not too bad for some of them, but those with particularly piercing voices or obnoxious line deliveries can be absolutely maddening. Perhaps the worst is Wave, whose shrill screams of “EASY GREASY” are fucking unbearable.
There aren’t many surprises among a roster of usual suspects. You’ve got Tails, Knuckles, Amy, the comedic Shadow, and all the other familiar faces including the fucking rabbit. I’m pleased that Lost World’s Deadly Six continue to get acknowledged in the spin-offs, with Zazz and Zavok representing the criminally underused antagonists. Zazz in particular feels like Sonic’s answer to Waluigi.
One pleasant surprise is seeing a gormless Egg Pawn among the gaggle. I’m a mark for basic enemies being playable in spin-offs, so getting one of Dr. Eggman’s regular mooks is a personal treat. It takes a lot for me to abandon my sassy bat, but I’ve played as that grinning robot more than Rouge. Egg Pawn’s a fun addition and exactly the kind of thing a game like this should be including.
Speaking of which, I protest Orbit and Cubot’s relegation to non-speaking background roles. They’re no Scratch and Grounder, but they’re fairly entertaining as Eggman’s contemporary henchmen and CrossWorlds totally missed a trick by not having them co-pilot as a single character choice. Why do I have to think of everything?
Characters aren’t bound to the vehicles explicitly designed for them, which is another popular move in the genre these days. CrossWorlds takes this further with a simple vehicle customizer that lets you cut n’ shut your machines, as well as repaint them, add decals, and unlock silly horns with fun visual effects.
If you know me, you know I adore all that cosmetic shit. It’s nice that characters have applicable preset color schemes, so if you put them in a different machine you can quickly tailor its paintjob to match. There’s a decent selection of colors if you go for a custom scheme, with a pleasing variety of paint types to make your components glossy, metallic, or whatever else you’d like.
While I’d have taken more customizable parts and a better than decent palette, there’s just enough to keep me invested in personalizing my rides. Also, they’ve got a car based on a classic Moto Bug enemy, and I love my little Moto Beetle.
Rides are broken into categories - Speed, Handling, Power, Acceleration, and Boost - but the differences between them aren’t so dramatic that I’ve found myself disliking any one type. The Boost category is reserved for a debuting vehicle concept, the edgily named Extreme Gear hover boards from Sonic Riders. They’re the type of machine I’d normally find too unwieldy to enjoy, but that silky handling suits them really well.
Gadgets - equippable perks that can enhance various playstyles - are gradually unlocked as you complete races. The slots in which to equip them also require unlocking, which is strange because it doesn’t take long to get them all and having all six slots is clearly the point. You’ll be able to save multiple Gadget loadouts, and there really needs to be an option to rename them.
These perks can occupy between one and three slots depending on how good they are. There are simple options like upgraded items or car buffs, but there are also ones that add a spinning attack to drifts, unlock a fourth Drift Gauge level, or grant a mini speed burst by bumping into other vehicles (I like that one). Some perks upgrade the stats of specific vehicle classes, and there are loads of options to suit any playstyle.
CrossWorlds’ game modes include the standard Grand Prix, a co-op focused Race Park, Time Trials, and the obligatory online multiplayer.
At present, the online mode only seems to offer basic single races rather than any of the team ones, despite teams being possible in the pre-launch network test. While this will almost certainly change in future, I can only review what’s available, and what’s available is… fine. You’re doing races, but online instead of offline, and there’s really not much more to it.
The single-player Grand Prix gets some extra flavor via Sonic Racing’s rivalry system. At the start of each tournament, one of the CPU racers is selected as your arch nemesis, offering increased rewards for outperforming them. The adorable part is that every possible rivalry has its own unique trash talk where the two racers slag each other off.
Despite rivalries being quite ancillary, the strong psychological effect of having a specific driver to humiliate is hilarious. Thanks to Sonic Racing I've learned that if a game tells me I should arbitrarily hate Tails for twenty minutes, I will dedicate every morsel of my being to his destruction until it’s over. I knew I could be impressionable, but I’m amazed and amused at how well the rivalry stuff works.
It is sadly not as big a part of the whole game as it should be, with unique interactions only triggering in Grand Prix and Race Park using a far less interesting version. I can’t help but think online races would benefit from players being paired off into rivalries. Either that or it would make me toss my controller through the television. Worth a go either way.
By the way, I’ve found out that if you set a rival’s level low, Grand Prix seems to become a cakewalk even on its highest difficulty setting. Since rivals are meant to be your biggest threat, a rubbish one effectively drags every other racer down with it. Perfect for a completionist’s needs.
Race Park houses a mix of single and team races, pitting players against “digital reconstructions” of existing characters. Winning these races is largely unimportant since the sole focus is on doing better than the two to four constructs also taking part. Beating these rivals is key to unlocking a series of pretty cool vehicles, so it’s worth blitzing through.
Due to their “simulated AI” gimmick, Race Park’s rivalries lack the characterization seen in Grand Prix. Digitized rivals play their trash talk animations but just make garbled computer sounds while your own character says nothing back. It makes the whole thing rather impersonal, and my motivation to beat them was solely focused on accessing new vehicles as a consequence.
Whatever mode you’re playing, you’ll be awarded Tickets for completing races, besting rivals, and accomplishing other feats such as collecting the most item boxes or being the one who selects lap two’s course. Tickets are spent to buy many of the vehicle customizations, including machine parts and all those extra bits of flare I mentioned earlier.
Tickets are also used in a “friendship” system that isn’t actually a friendship system. Basically, if you “gift” a certain number of tickets to a picture of a character, you’ll unlock new cosmetics and stuff. They’re just vendors really, another avenue through which to acquire decals and the like. They’re also incrementally and swiftly expensive.
For those wanting to get into the customization aspect, CrossWorlds can be quite a grind. A basic race awards roughly 20 Tickets and there are milestones worth 100. A full vehicle (front, back, and wheels) costs 220 Tickets on average, most decals are 200, a new horn will set you back 500, and a cosmetic aura is 2000! Gift giving requires a couple of thousand to max out a single character - friendship is costly in Sonic’s shallow world.
There’s a lot of cute stuff to get but choice paralysis sets in when one realizes how long it’ll take to recoup the Tickets spent on any one thing. While there are far grindier games on the market, the costs are needlessly high.
Some of that might be an attempt to bump up the notion of replay value, since you can get through all the Grand Prix content and subsequently see every track in a short amount of time. Given the fairly low number of game modes, grinding for unlocks is about the only carrot CrossWorlds can dangle before too long. Ironically, speeding up the reward drip is what would help.
As good a game as it is, I’ve found myself burning out during lengthier sessions, and my eagerness to go through the same set of courses started to wane more as the time between unlocks increased. I’d be far more into replaying if rivalries got more attention and friendships weren’t a nothing burger.
Online play doesn’t feel like the return draw one would expect. With the offline options having more features, gimmicks, and rewards, the online content looks rather meager in comparison. It’s clear from the multiple “coming soon” notices in various menus that regular updates are on the docket, but again, I can’t review what isn’t there.
The best I can say is that multiplayer performs an adequate service as a quick and shallow thing to dip in and out of. You don’t even get any bonus Tickets out of it, with solo play being far more lucrative.
The racetracks themselves are well designed and full of fun details. Naturally, many are based on other Sonic games, and there are some interesting pulls such as Secret Rings and five courses inspired by Unleashed. I’m personally happy to see one inspired by Sonic Forces - speaking as somebody who’s caught fandom abuse for genuinely liking that unfairly maligned game, it’s neat to see even a tiny homage.
It only makes sense to see Sonic Frontiers represented, given how everyone but me loved it. The mystically uncharismatic Sage is a driver and there’s a course that sticks out like a sore thumb for how drab it looks. I can respect that people adore the game, but the aesthetic is miserable when juxtaposed against all the colorful stuff.
Mario Kart World understandably has CrossWorlds beat in the visual department, but Sonic Team’s kept things bold, bright, and simple for a sufficiently pretty set of tracks. Those second laps boast some especially eye-searing environments that I greatly appreciate. The series has a knack for stylized vehicles design, and some of the paint job effects look gorgeous on them.
After that bit of praise, I’m going to get on my soapbox in a review that’s already far too long for how many people actually care what I think about a Sonic spin-off game…
I think it’s a tragedy that the Hedgehog Engine’s been ditched for Unreal in Sonic’s recent games. You won’t catch me claiming to know much about game engines, but the one thing I do know is that Sonic Team has had a fucking brilliant one for years. I’ve been applauding it since it debuted with Sonic Unleashed, which was a visual stunner for its era.
Hell, even when I’ve torn a Sonic game to shreds, my reviews would almost always include a positive note about the Hedgehog Engine. I’m just that big a fan of it.
Yeah, CrossWorlds looks nice, but I can palpably feel the step down with Unreal Engine. Visually comparing it to Sonic Generations flatters the latter like you wouldn’t believe - there’s a visual richness and a depth of color that just isn’t there anymore. I’m not a techie, I have no disdain for Unreal, I simply think the Hedgehog Engine deserves all the flowers and that CrossWorlds would’ve been all the better for it.
Anyway, that’s my whinge of the day.
I like it when characters call each other out in the middle of a race when attacked. It’s been drastically reduced in this game, which is probably for the long term best, but the very rare time it happens is fun. We have a good soundtrack full of familiar themes, and even though it features the weakest version of Rooftop Run, I’m happy to hear any version of that all-time banger.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a great little game. As well as availing itself of as many genre features as it could carry, it’s quite possibly the smoothest kart racer I’ve played and certainly one of the nicest to handle. With a cute set of gimmicks and solid customization options, its biggest problem is lacking enough modes and maps to quite cover a significant unlock grind.
At the end of the day, you can be an eggy robot if you want, and isn’t that what’s important?
8.5/10
