Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Coming For The Pole Position This September

gaming, sega, sonic racing CrossWorlds

When racing in Mario Kart World, the famous plumber may want to keep a close eye on his rear view mirror because a blue hedgehog is quickly catching up. Sonicâ€™s latest venture into the racing world, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds drops September 25th and is it ever looking good.

Yesterday at Summer Game Fest, Sega dropped a fantastic new trailer for CrossWorlds. They then dropped a whole bunch of exciting news about the game that has had arcade racing fans salivating at the chance to play it, myself included.

For the first time ever Sonic Racing will feature full cross-platform multiplayer. This means whether you are on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One or PC you can play with any of your friends and race for platform supremacy. The game will be coming to the Switch 2 at some point as well.

CrossWorlds will feature 24 different tracks as well as 15 CrossWorlds. What are CrossWorlds you might ask? They are areas where players will get warped into a new dimension opening up new possibilities to get the edge on your fellow racers.

Perhaps the most exciting announcement yesterday was that the roster is expanding to characters outside Sonicâ€™s world. Iconic Sega characters like Yakuzaâ€™s Ichiban Kasuga and Personaâ€™s Joker will be playable, as well as other characters from outside the Sega brand.

Additionally, you will be able to play as characters from Minecraft and race on a Minecraft themed track. The Minrcraft content will be paid dlc via a season pass.

Minecraft + Sonic Racing is a winning combo

All of this, mixed with some great racing gameplay is sure to keep race fans who missed out on a Switch 2 happy.

Key Features

Ready, Set, Warp: Race across 24 courses and warp to 15 CrossWorlds with Travel Rings, a unique gameplay mechanic that transports the iconic characters from the Sonic and SEGA universes into new dimensions
Race With The Best: Choose from 23 iconic Sonic characters, the largest roster of any Sonic racing game!
Make It Yours: Mix and match between 45 unique original vehicles and 70 different gadgets to trick out your ride, level up your kart, and create the ultimate machine to match your racing style.
Gain the Advantage with Power-Ups: Dominate your opponents with 23 different power-up items including returning favorites and all-new items like the Monster Truck!
Multiple Ways to Play: Gather with friends and play local split-screen in Grand Prix and the new party mode Race Park, compete against a community of players from around the world with up to 12 players online in World Match, or test your driving skills in Time Trials.

We also got some words from Takashi Iizuka, Creative Officer, Sonic Team via the PlayStation blog about the development and idea behind CrossWorlds.

â€œWhen we started planning for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, we wanted to make it the next major title in the Sonic Racing series that started with Sonic & Sega all-Stars Racing. To achieve this, we needed to create a comprehensive compilation of all the fun from past titles for it to become a masterpiece in the series. We felt it was necessary to feature a wide variety of Sega characters as playable racers, since that was a core feature people loved in the previous titles.â€

Iuzuka also went on to talk about why they brought in characters outside of the Sonic universe for the first time:

â€œIncluding characters from both Sega and ATLUS games â€“ new and old â€“ in this game allowed us to break down franchise barriers and deliver an exciting racing experience for players. Weâ€™ve even gone so far as to include other iconic characters outside of SEGAâ€™s lineup to join the race and expand the gameâ€™s appeal to more people.â€

Indeed games in genres like arcade racing and fighters need to continually expand rosters to keep things fresh, and CrossWorlds definitely appears to have succeeded on that front.

Classic Tracks Returning

Lastly, Iuzuka spoke a little about the tracks you can see in CrossWorlds. While it is always important to create new and exciting maps, the Sonic team also recognizes nostalgia, especially in a Sonic game. A few tracks from previous Sonic games will be present in CrossWorlds.

â€œWe designed many brand-new tracks for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, but we also know that fans like racing on tracks that take them back to places they remember from Sonicâ€™s history. In addition to the new locations, we also designed tracks using themes from past titles to create new ones based on familiar places.â€

â€œI am personally excited about the track based on Metal Harbor since I worked on Sonic Adventure 2. The team did an amazing job bringing Metal Harbor to life with a realistic portrayal that was impossible to accomplish back when the original stage was created.â€

Pre-Orderâ€™s Available Now

Also announced yesterday is that pre-orders are live now as well as all the pre-order bonuses. The game will be available in standard and deluxe editions. The deluxe edition will be digital only.

The Standard version will be $59.99 on the Nintendo Switch and $69.99 on all other platforms. Players who purchase the game on the Nintendo Switch will also be able to pay $10 for the Switch 2 upgrade when it becomes available.

The digital deluxe edition will cost $89.99 and includes 3 days early access, the Season Pass as well as the Sonic Prime Character Pack. Both the standard and deluxe edition pre-orders will include the Werehog DLC pack.

For collectors, you havenâ€™t been left behind as Sega has teamed with Limited Run Games to create a mammoth collectors edition. The collectors edition will run you $249.99, or $199.99 on PC, and is only available for pre-order until July 6th. If you think the price is high, the edition is at least packed to the brim with content.