Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Review

It’s criminal that the closest we have had to a proper faceoff between one Italian plumber and the fastest hedgehog alive is some goofy Olympic foot races. You’d imagine that a standing invitation to strap into a kart and have a playful race or twenty would be a done deal. But somehow, in the year 2025, we see the two kart racing franchises of rivalries past go head-to-head – even if they are not sharing the same track.

And somehow, that darn hedgehog has finally pulled ahead – years after Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed made enough waves to shake off the identity of “We have Mario Kart at home.”

Omega is programmed to crush your spirit (mostly with sick burns)

Surface level, the basic gameplay of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is precisely what you would expect – boosting, drifting and making use of power ups to tip the odds ever more in your favour. You even snaffle up round golden things to boost your max speed – in a very squint-and-you-might-think-you-were-playing-a-different-kart-racer kind of way. The bright and bombastic selection of race courses feel familiar – in the sense that some of these are clearly playing on the greatest hits of racetracks past (seriously, I will take a race track set in a mall EVERY TIME if you offer it to me) but before you can recline and think you are in for more of the same, the lid gets blown clean off with the introduction of the true secret ingredient at play: Travel Rings.

Working precisely like every videogame portal you have encountered in modern times, passing through a Travel Ring will see your racing experience shift from the initial track selected to an entirely new location for the second lap. In a generation where kart racing as a genre feels almost ossified in what players might expect, the idea of innovating to keep things fresh leads to creative new outcomes, with CrossWorlds deciding that the best way to keep players engaged is by invoking the age old adage that a change of scenery can be as good as a holiday. The actual destination is chosen by the race leader – the privilege of holding that coveted spot made clear – with the options being a randomised destination, or a telegraphed one shown prior to selection. If you want to jet off the searing sands of Sand Road and cool off for a spell in the ice of Holoska, get yourself in that pole position and keep yourself there. Otherwise, roll the dice and head off to whereever the random option takes you.

The mechanic is then brought back in force for the final track in a Grand Prix, where your fourth race is made up of a lap from each of previous courses – like a greatest hits compilation of your experience so far. It is such a fiendishly clever use of such a mechanic, that I am shocked nobody thought to use it sooner. The outcome is a genuine feeling of proper variety with your racing, whether you are selecting the interstitial lap – or cursing the choice made by whoever pulled ahead of you.

That isn’t to say that the courses themselves depend on this world-warping weirdness to be enjoyable, because the actual tracks are immensely fun in their own right. It’s no surprise that each of them changes and progresses from first lap to last, with optional paths and hazards becoming active in the later stages – but the sheer creativity involved with them is something else entirely. Your first go round the Wonder Museum course will have you admiring the many artworks and bony exhibits that have been curated there, before finding yourself dodging the now-living dinosaur skeletons as the competition comes to a head.

The themes on offer for each Grand Prix lift heavily from the plethora of past Sonic outings, with incredible level designs and some really inspired gimmicks to keep you on your toes. Blasting across the deck of an aircraft carrier, dodging G.U.N. Robots one minute, and then rocketing through narrow Grecian streets and rooftops the next do a lot to keep you on your toes and engaged. A lot has been done to keep paths and options clearly readable within these worlds, considering the breakneck pace you will find yourself at most of the time.

To foster your initial exploratory nature, each course also has the staple hidden red star rings of Sonic games past. These do a great deal to have you sniffing out alternate paths as you find yourself curious to their whereabouts, leading to discoveries of many horizontal and vertical splits in the racetrack. Collecting all of these bad boys in a single run also nets you a tasty bonus of in-game currency, so the completionists that walk among us will be quick to zero in on such an opportunity.

Blaze the Cat is an awesome character and I will not tolerate any slander

To my immense satisfaction, the act of kart building is very much alive in CrossWorlds – and implemented in a way that actually feels rewarding to do. Your race car of choice is made up of different parts, mixing and matching a front and rear assembly, before settling on your wheels and a paint job. Tiny incremental changes impact your stat spread, ramping up whatever you most desire. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing Shadow the Hedgehog zooming forward in his pretty pink coupe – as much as it is a hoot seeing Cream the Rabbit revving up her black and crimson nightmare engine.

It doesn’t just stop there though, because there is also a suite of decal applications you can do to turn your nightmare engine into something bespoke and very much you. Immediately I was able to scale and rotate two enormous toothy grins on the side, colouring and placing them much like the old Messerschmitt fighters of old. There is a whole bundle of primitive shapes and colours that you can squash and stretch into racing stripes, two tone shading and the like – or you can dip your hand into the range of more involved sticker offerings starring SEGA branded vistas and characters. It’s a fantastic way to establish a point of difference between yourself and the other edgy kid racing in the nightmare engine unironically. Hot pink with a smiley face on it? Why the hell not.

You can then unlock further gubbinz by way  of prize tickets, awarded after each race depending on your placing and the accolades you managed to achieve – such as grabbing those red star rings – to give you plenty to work towards between races. These span the gamut from more front and rear car ends, to stickers, to custom horns and glow effects for your car – with a neat scaling cost that incentivises you to start squirreling away your tickets for the gaudiest things you like.

No, you cannot stack the decals and make a suspect shape – I tried

Where your cosmetic customisation ends, the actual nuts and bolts of your tailored racing experience begins. Within CrossWorlds, a set of equippable slots known as gadgets are used to bring your best self to the race track. These range from starting power ups, to passive benefits, and all the way to more involved things like amending your drifting ability to become an offensive kart sweep. Playing the game increases the number of slots you can make use of (to a total of six), and by the time you are ready to take the fight online you are probably cooking up a loadout that works for you.

A daring implementation, given the depth of balance related issues that can arise – but at its core it signifies a proper maturation of the genre, where players are entrusted with a little more control over their racing experience. Kart racers have always been considered a ‘safe’ affair, a place where any kind of power-hungry, elitist activity comes across as a bit out of character. How can you fist pump and roar about your victories, when the entire experience feels distinctly child-coded? Well here is the place where lines are drawn. Craft your plan and execute it. Or, be a weirdo like me and just take passive ring generation buffs so I can stop trying to collect them mid race. Backflips, yo.

Now while I did say that the gameplay is what you’d expect, that is in no way a negative or even neutral statement. This is a kart racer that understands the cadence of a racing experience, equal parts speed and strategy, but allows new things to gently nudge that tempo in ways that are more fun than frustrating. One of these is the rivals system, which leverages the colossally fun cast of characters into a micro game of cat and mouse within races – as each Grand Prix starts with you choosing a particular putz to be the Shadow to your Sonic. Within races, you will hear unique barks between your character and them, adding a little spice to your race – and they will be highlighted during the course of the competition. Something so simple in execution adds a tremendous amount of mini-moments within the game – because suddenly that person passing you isn’t some random dork you don’t care about, it’s that shit-talking robot idiot who cussed you out at the start of the race. Your pride is on the line.

This does introduce the one egregious sin of the game – the unforgivable thing that bums me out terribly, and that is the lack of voice acting for guest characters. While the crazier DLC people are yet to be released, the Day 1 drops of characters such as Sonic Prime Rusty Rose, Nine and Captain Dread were a delight to see – but they are entirely mute. A developer interview revealed this is a deliberate choice, but regardless of intent it just outright sucks.

This is at least offset by the sheer breadth of chatter between regular characters. In most games I will pick a character that I feel suits me best, and remain latched onto them like some unimaginative lamprey until the end of time – but in CrossWorlds I can’t help but chase down new rival dialogue, trick callouts and win quotes, forcing me to dip my toe into all sorts of different stat lines and playstyles.

Vector, you glorious idiot

There are also a smattering of fun modes that remix the experience if you are craving even more variety, with many party mode-type offerings courtesy of the Race Park. These are great to do with mates, as the majority of them ask you to compete in teams to achieve victory – with neat twists like sharing rings to contribute to a boost meter. You can even jump into a custom ruleset area to tailor an experience that is wholly your own, echoing the amazing experience of No items, Fox only, Final Destination, but with race cars.

Sound design has always been a strong point of Sonic games, and CrossWorlds does not disappoint – I have genuinely had some of the game’s music stuck in my head long after I put the controller down. Many are tracks you remember from past games, just with a bit of a shift and shuffle to up the tempo and make it race-appropriate. There is even a level of dynamic mixing taking place, with awesome highlights such as a vocal track kicking in when you are on the final lap of a course. If this doesn’t make you do the Mario Kart Lean, I am not sure what will – but I am more inclined to call it the CrossWorlds Crouch moving forward.

Final Thoughts

It’s a confident and refreshing return to form that showcases exactly what makes the Sonic Racing series so great. Iterating on what made Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed so great, and innovating on how to capture that magic and keep it fresh has paid dividends for creating a kart racing experience that properly delivers a modern experience that hinges on replayability. With a breakneck pace that is a joy to experience, stunning visuals and a soundtrack that gets your heart racing alongside your in-game kart, there’s very little to fault here.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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