For those less happy with Mario Kart World, Sonic Racing CrossWorlds is a genuine contender

It’s nigh-on impossible for developers to release a karting game without drawing constant Mario Kart comparisons at the best of times.

Given that Nintendo has just released the first new entry in the series in over a decade, however, Sega finds itself in an unenviable position – at least on paper – where it may be even more difficult to steer the spotlight away from Mario and chums.

In a surprising twist of fate, however, this time Sega might actually have a better chance at competing. Mario Kart World’s new change in focus has not only provided Nintendo’s series with the dose of freshness some have been hoping for, it’s also now opened a gap that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds might just be able to powerslide through.

Whereas Mario’s latest karting adventure shifts the series’ focus to open-world racing on a large map, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is unapologetically staunch in its sole focus on traditional lap-based arcade racing, quite literally, in this case.

Whereas previous Sonic Racing games – including the much-loved Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and its sequel Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed – were developed by Sumo Digital, CrossWorlds is instead handled by Sega’s arcade racing team, which in recent years has been responsible for the Initial D series of coin-op racers.

The result is clear after just a few minutes of hands-on time, with CrossWorlds providing the sort of vibrant, velocitous gameplay that would have been commonplace in arcades at the turn of the millennium. Crucially, it’s also greatly improved over the last time I played it.

When a closed PS5 beta for the game took place in February, the handling was extremely heavy, with players used to the powersliding from previous Sonic racing games finding themselves constantly slamming into the inside of turns. This appears to have been tweaked noticeably for the build I played at Summer Game Fest.

While powerslides still don’t swing out quite as much as they do in previous Sonic racing games, they’re far more satisfying than they were in the beta. My session with the game lasted for an hour, and by the end of that time, I was entirely hooked, with a large part of this being down to the immensely gratifying way corners can be hugged with practice. In short, if you played the beta and were worried that Sega had ruined things, have faith.

“My session with the game lasted for an hour and by the end of that time I was entirely hooked, with a large part of this being down to the immensely gratifying way corners can be hugged with practice. In short, if you played the beta and were worried that Sega had ruined things, have faith.”

The main new gimmick in CrossWorlds is the Travel Rings, which are similar to those seen in the Sonic movies. At the end of each lap, two ring portals appear, each leading to different tracks. Whichever player is in first place at that point gets to choose one of the portals, with everyone else made to pass through the same one. It’s an interesting mechanic that not only ensures races feel less repetitive but also gives players an incentive to battle to reach the front of the pack early.

The build I played had three separate Grands Prix, each consisting of three separate tracks. There’s then a final fourth race, where all three tracks are joined together by the portals. While this does basically remove the choice aspect from the last race, there’s another incentive in that winning the fourth race is worth more points, giving you (or opponents) one final chance to catch up in the leaderboard.

Portals aside, it all seems fairly safe, but at a time when Mario Kart is taking bold new steps, safe may be what certain players are looking for. Not everyone is sold on the open-world gimmickry of Mario Kart World, with its wide, highway-like transitions. In that sense, Sonic Racing Cross World, despite being traditional on paper, now finds itself in an unusual state of affairs where offering more of the same now feels like offering something different.

The same goes for customization. Whereas Mario Kart World leans back from it – removing MK8’s ability to choose wheels and gliders in favour of a simple selection of preset vehicles – CrossWorlds doubles down by giving players a bunch of customisable vehicles to choose from, some of which can be unlocked through gameplay or the game’s Season Pass system.

It’s Sega’s acknowledgement of what worked best before that will likely be the most appealing factor of CrossWorlds, however. The last entry, Team Sonic Racing, was a perfectly serviceable title, but removed many of the elements that fans loved in previous entries. The car transforming mechanic from Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed had been ditched, and its hefty selection of characters from all over the Sega universe and beyond had been downgraded to a simple roster of 15 Sonic characters.

Responding to fan feedback on this – as confirmed by Sonic Head head Takashi Iizuka when I asked him about it – Sega has restored both features, bringing back the transforming vehicles for land, sea, and air races, and kicking off its crossover roster with vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku, Persona character Joker, and Like a Dragon protagonist Ichiban Kasuga.

“Whereas Mario Kart World leans back from it, CrossWorlds doubles down by giving players a bunch of customisable vehicles to choose from”

It’s even reached further back to ensure the most ardent fans are satisfied, with the return of Extreme Gear, the high-tech hoverboards used in 2006 GameCube / PS2 / Xbox game Sonic Riders. By offering both Extreme Gear and cars, CrossWorlds offers the ‘Mario Kart bikes’ moment for the Sonic racing series.

It’s the Minecraft-themed content – three racers, a minecart vehicle, and a track – that’s the most interesting in terms of what this game could eventually become, though. Sega has stated that CrossWorlds will have a Season Pass with more characters and tracks on the way, and given its multiverse-style setup, there’s the clear potential here for multiple seasons of content, with an ever-growing roster of characters who could come from any source.

Live service karting games have been attempted in the past, and the results have been mixed at best. Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled upset players by adding microtransactions a month after release (after promising none), and extremely time-consuming, limited-time missions.

Free-to-play racer Disney Speedstorm continues to give players a consistent stream of characters – there are now 92 and counting – but lost many players’ goodwill over time (including mine) by splitting its seasons into 2-3 separate paid parts and hiding each new major character behind increasingly elaborate and expensive loot boxes.

And yes, because he always has to get a mention, Mario Kart Tour also kept its live service features going for a while, offering hordes of characters and costumes, but its heavy emphasis on gacha mechanics and the fact that many people will ultimately never accept Mario Kart on mobile meant it was only ever going to do so well.

Like it or not, the medium has now reached a stage where most players don’t mind paying extra money for future content as long as those transactions are respectfully handled. If Sega can carefully deliver CrossWorlds’ live service element in a way that is fair to players, we could be looking at a game that, a few years from now, has an enormous, vibrant roster from a wide variety of IPs.

“If Sega can carefully deliver CrossWorlds’ live service element in a way that is fair to players, we could be looking at a game that a few years from now has an enormous, vibrant roster from a wide variety of IPs.”

It seems Sega agrees. Although the publisher has previously said there will be “23 iconic Sonic characters” at launch, the character select screen in the build I played had enough slots for 56 racers. This would all be for naught if the game itself wasn’t fun to play, but my time spent with CrossWorlds has made it perfectly clear to me that this is a race that Sega is more than capable of winning.

On Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, should it all come off as expected, there’s clearly no reason why CrossWorlds can’t take pole position and become the best karting game available on those formats. But even when the game eventually comes to Switch 2 – which Iizuka told me will be as soon as possible after its release on other systems – it could very easily fill that gap left behind by Mario Kart World.

Karting games on Nintendo formats are usually ranked with the caveat “if you don’t count Mario Kart”, but CrossWorlds has the potential to provide players with a viable alternative that not only embraces some of the features left behind by Nintendo’s latest – the no-nonsense arcade racing, the addition of characters from other series, car customisation – but also promises to continually update itself more than Nintendo’s game might, ensuring it could remain fresh for quite some time.