Mario Kart has been the undisputed king of kart racers for decades. While dozens of challengers have tried to steal the crown over the years, Mario’s arch-rival Sonic has remained one of its closest competitors.
The hyperactive hedgehog made his kart racing debut in the 1990s with the Sonic Drift series on the Sega Game Gear handheld (both games can be played on modern platforms in the Sonic Origins Plus compilation if you’re curious), before spawning the Sonic Racing series.
Whenever there’s a new Mario Kart, a Sonic Racing game is likely to follow closely behind, shadowing the plumber’s slipstream. That’s certainly the case this year, with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, the first new entry in six years, arriving a mere three months after Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World.
As Sega loves to reiterate, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has a significant advantage. Unlike its Nintendo rival, it’s out on every major platform, releasing on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, with a Switch 2 version set to release later this year. It’s even on PS4 and Xbox One. With crossplay support across all platforms, CrossWorlds looks set to be one of the most ubiquitous kart racers.
Sega is clearly confident it can take on Nintendo’s juggernaut, even poking fun at Mario Kart World’s underwhelming free roaming in a tongue-in-cheek trailer.
Transforming vehicles make a triumphant return
The last entry, 2019’s Team Sonic Racing, removed the transforming vehicles seen in its predecessor, the revered Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed, in favour of team-based racing. But the result was mediocre and a step backwards, and so it struggled to stand out. Wisely, transforming vehicles make a triumphant return in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.
At specific points, your vehicle will automatically switch between a car, boat or plane, allowing you to race across land, sea and air. It’s a fun gimmick, with each vehicle’s unique handling requiring you to adjust your play style on the fly.
Boats feel too heavy and can jump instead of drift when charging the boost to collect hard-to-reach rings. Flying is fun, but it feels stiff as you can’t roll in planes. Land vehicles, meanwhile, feel snappy, if a tad floaty and weightless, but are easy to drive and satisfying to drift while collecting rings.
Vehicles are split into five classes: Acceleration, Speed, Boost, Handling and Power. As the name suggests, handling class vehicles can turn sharper at the expense of top speed and are the most enjoyable to drive. Elsewhere, Boost vehicles see Extreme Gears from Sonic Riders make a welcome return. These take the form of hoverboards, and their agility makes it easier to fit through tight gaps.
Unfortunately, the water and air sections are often too brief. In Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, the boat and plane sections lasted an entire lap, with the track layout changing lap after lap. Here, they are restricted to designated sections that last around 30 seconds and repeat in each lap.
Driving across dimensions
While transforming vehicles aren’t new to the series, the latest entry introduces the titular CrossWorlds. At the end of the first lap, giant portals, known as Travel Rings appear on the track. Driving through one teleports you into a new world chosen by the lead driver, before the final lap returns you to the original circuit. The 15 CrossWorlds range from a colourful casino with giant chips to avoid, to a pirate-themed shipwreck, to a jungle with dinosaurs rampaging past you.
Inspired by the Sonic movies, it’s a novel idea and well executed, with impressively seamless transitions reminiscent of Rachet & Clank: Rift Apart – even on the ancient PlayStation 4.
Although the novelty eventually wears off, Travel Rings make the second lap unpredictable, and the addition of standard locations after you complete every Grand Prix helps ease the repetition. Even if you’ve mastered every track inside out, the random nature of Travel Rings can test experienced players, making for riveting races.
It’s a shame, however, that you can’t turn off Travel Rings if you would rather stay in one location in a single race.
Gotta go fast
Like the mainline Sonic games, CrossWorlds is all about maintaining and increasing your speed by collecting rings, driving over dash pads (Sonic’s equivalent of boost pads) and holding drifts with a dedicated shoulder button that also charges up to four levels of boost.
While jumping, flicking the left analogue stick pulls off exaggerated flips and spins. However, these are too easy to execute. It’s impossible to fail a trick – a penalty, such as losing boost when failing to land a trick, would have added a sense of risk versus reward.
When chaining boosts together, the sense of speed is dizzying. However, even when racing on the higher difficulty speed settings, vehicles feel slow when not boosting. Turning on the dynamic camera setting helps mitigate this by lowering the camera and widening the field of view.
At times, the action can become too frenetic and chaotic, making it difficult to see what’s going on – especially when power-ups are added to the mix.
Weapons range from boxing gloves and giant bombs to throw at opponents, to tornadoes and shields that block attacks, with a good balance of offensive and defensive items. There’s even a Blue Shell equivalent, with the King Boom Boo item homing onto the driver in first place, and a version of Mario Kart’s Bullet Bill. Like most kart racers, there is some obvious rubber banding, with racers slowing down and more powerful items being handed to you if you fall behind.
Whereas Sumo Digital developed the last three Sonic Racing games, CrossWorlds is helmed by Sega’s dedicated Sega Team in collaboration with the developer of the Initial D arcade racers. The latter team’s influence is clear.
From the obnoxious race announcer to the pumping soundtrack, CrossWorlds is unapologetically arcadey. It wouldn’t look out of place in a bowling alley arcade cabinet next to Cruis’n Blast. With Sega also working on a Crazy Taxi reboot, it’s encouraging to see a big-name publisher putting arcade racing back into the limelight.
Every track is a visual spectacle, filled with dynamic backgrounds and giant monsters to avoid. It’s like going on an intense theme park ride. One minute you’re speeding through a shopping mall, the next you’re driving under skeleton dinosaurs in a museum, alongside fan-favourite locations like Metal Harbour from Sonic Adventure 2. Strangely, the iconic Green Zone is absent, unless it’s being reserved for DLC.
Tracks are well-designed, featuring plenty of shortcuts, alternate routes, and multiple levels, but they rarely challenge you. Some tracks bear more than a passing resemblance to Mario Kart, though: E-Stadium looks eerily similar to Mario Kart Stadium, while Colorful Mall might as well be a copy of Coconut Mall.
Despite how busy the environments can be, performance is rock solid on PS5. On PS4, the frame rate appears to be downgraded to 30fps, with no performance mode option to increase it in favour of reduced fidelity. While there are some visual compromises such as flatter water effects, the PS4 version compares surprisingly well to its PS5 counterpart.
While the visuals are vibrant and detailed, there are concessions to accommodate the older hardware. Textures sometimes appear blurry, while background elements, such as spectators and jets flying overhead, are rendered at a noticeably low frame rate, which makes the presentation look unpolished at times.
A more traditional kart racer
In contrast to Mario Kart World’s focus on an open world map with connected tracks that lets players drive between locations, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds’ Grand Prixs offer a more familiar kart racing experience. At the start, there are six cups to complete, each containing three separate, unconnected tracks.
In a twist, the final cup race combines each circuit from the Grand Prix, with you racing in a different location each lap and the opportunity to earn bonus points that can influence the final result. However, mashing previous circuits together instead of having you race on n epic original track for the finale feels anticlimactic.
Getting six gold cups unlocks the bonus Egg Cup, with one standout track seeing you race through a car factory, racing over conveyor belts while dodging paint sprayers. Completing that unlocks a Secret Cup, featuring Kronos Island from Sonic Frontiers, Northstar Islands from Sonic Superstars and White Space from Sonic Generations. At launch, there are 24 tracks, with more to be added in themed DLC packs.
Once you’ve completed the Grand Prix, there’s still plenty to keep you engaged. Alongside traditional time trials, the Race Park is a series of party games. Harking back to the cooperative gameplay in Team Sonic Racing, this mode teams you up with three other drivers in mini games, where you must collect the most coins, tap the most teammates or pass through the most dash pads.
With team objectives reminiscent of Codemasters’ forgotten arcade racer OnRush, the Race Park is a fun addition that shines in split screen, which ran smoothly in our two-player test, or online multiplayer supporting up to 12 players.
Online matches can be set up with friends against AI or online players with a plethora of ruleset options. However, power-ups can’t be turned off if you want to have a traditional competitive race, and inviting friends isn’t intuitive initially, thanks to the clunky UI design.
A rivals system also adds replay value. Each race pits you against a rival character who taunts you. This gives characters distinct personalities, but their repeated dialogue during races can get repetitive.
These characters are more aggressive and challenging to beat, but their difficulty can be reduced if they repeatedly defeat you. To give you an incentive, defeating them all unlocks a secret character.
The golden hedgehog is one of 23 characters that form Sonic Racing: CrossWorld’s roster at launch. Naturally, these include series mainstays like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow and the deranged Dr. Eggman, alongside side characters such as Amy Rose and the E-123 Omega robot.
While most of the character roster is pulled from the Sonic universe, a handful of characters from fabled Sega franchises are set to join the roster in free updates, including Hatsune Miku, Yakuza’s Ichiban Kasuga and Joker from Persona 5.
Sega is also expanding the character roster with guest appearances from other franchises, including Minecraft, Pac-Man, SpongeBob, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Avatar. However, these characters are restricted to a paid season pass, included in the Digital Deluxe Edition, and will, sadly, lack voiceovers. It’s also jarring to see SpongeBob in a Sonic-themed game, considering that he already stars in Nickelodeon Kart Racers.
Gadget racers
Adding to the sense of progression, credits won in races can be spent on customising your vehicle – a feature that its Nintendo competitor notably lacks. Whereas Mario Kart World’s vehicles are preset, they are fully customisable in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, with extensive options allowing you to mix and match outlandish front and rear body designs with custom wheels, paint jobs, decals, horns and ‘aura’ flame glow effects.
Characters aren’t tied to a specific vehicle this time, either. If you’ve ever dreamed of driving Doctor Robotnik’s Egg Mobile with a giant drill at the front, as Sonic, you can now.
Then there’s the new gadget system. Here, you can create custom powerup loadouts that give you special abilities. These range from the ability to carry more weapons to starting the race with a speed boost. It’s surprisingly versatile, encouraging you to experiment with gadgets and loadouts that suit your playstyle.
For example, if you want to be aggressive, you can equip a gadget that starts you in a monster truck, knocking rivals in your path out of the way for a short time. Alternatively, if you enjoy drifting, equipping a charge kit increases your drift gauge faster. This can be paired with a special ability that spins your vehicle while drifting to take out opponents.
Gadgets can be stored in up to six slots, which gradually unlock. To keep everything balanced, more powerful weapons take up three slots, while weaker power-ups take up one or two slots. It all adds strategic depth to the racing.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds vs. Mario Kart World
Mario Kart set the blueprint for kart racing. As a result, any game that follows will inevitably be compared to it. With that in mind, many players will be wondering if Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is better Mario Kart World. The answer depends on your preference.
Mario Kart World is larger in scope, with more polished presentation and weightier vehicle handling. But Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds surpasses its rival in many ways, with its deeper customisation and enough interesting ideas to set it apart. It plays like a pure 1990s arcade racer, though its exhausting intensity may not appeal to everyone. Both games complement each other like chips and ketchup.
It doesn’t quite reach the same heights as All-Stars Transformed, but Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a solid return to form for the series and a worthy alternative to Mario Kart World. It’s fun, frantic and brilliantly brash, just as every kart racer should be. With Kirby Air Riders also launching on Switch 2 later this year, kart racing is having a resurgence.
For more on Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, check out our tips and tricks guide.
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