Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Coming Sep. 25, 2025

Everyone on Twitter seems to love the game and only a few on here have criticised the driving. Maybe this is another Frontiers situation where it'll be popular and I'll hate it. Lol!

 

It’s more arcady, more chaotic and despite borrowing so much stuff from sumo games, it’s basically a different kind of game altogether
Once you get past that, it’s actually mad fun so far, and that’s without extreme gears in play yet.

it’s funny tho that i finally see some respect for TSR ,”perhaps we treated you so harshly” kinda thing.

Gotta say tho, i do dislike the music here, only thing that is really disappointing me so far, not a fan of main theme at all

 

The more I play and the more I get used to it the more I'm really enjoying it. I just have to accept that it's a different sort of game.

Nothing feels as weighty as the Sumo Digital trilogy, and that's a really shame. I adored the real "heft" to the vehicles in those games. There was such a tactile sense of gradual acceleration that's entirely lost here with what feels like more instantaneous boosting. This game might look like ASRT, but it takes a lot of direct inspiration from Mario Kart 8.

The balance is really, really fucked though. The weight item is an unavoidable trap given to lower ranks that just punishes first and second place for no reason. Awful. Drill (the Bullet Bill equivalent) seems to last forever and can take to near to the front of the pack. The ATV (Power Star and Mega Mushroom in one) is given out far too readily. Laser is a super powered boost with zero risk. All of the offensive items are basically guaranteed to hit someone... There's just way, way, way too much going on. Items are handed out way too frequently and are way too powerful for such tiny courses. They are need to be significantly toned down.

Races often hinge upon who gets the best item drops in lap 3. Not entirely, I don't want to exaggerate. But they play far too great a role. It's overbearing.

 

Played for 4 hours. Made it to B Ranks.

Game is a lot of fun. I do not understand the low budget complaints on here outside of the 3fps Chao crowds. This is the nicest looking and performing game in the series by far (ignoring the PC versions).

It doesn't handle like the Sumo games so if you were going into this with that expectation you're going to be disappointed. I would in no way describe this as the worst kart racing game ever. It just handles differently.

This game is a lot more combat focused compared to the previous entries though. You'll be trading items and bumping into other racer a ton with how narrow the track design is. My build is based entirely around close quarters combat.

One thing I will say that blows is certain items. Mainly the Monster Truck and the ability to pocket it is really fucking annoying. At the ranks I'm playing right now, it sems like everyone stores it and busts it out on the last lap on the final stretch. It's not uncommon to run into 2-3 of them at the end

 

I really value your opinion so maybe I'll play a few more times and try to get into it.

 

They stole my money and ran. I didn't treat it harshly enough by filing a refund.

 

I think it's possible I might have jumped the shark a bit because it plays nothing like Transformed

it plays a lot better when you learn that you have to drift all the time.

 

I definitely feel like the biggest divisive factor will be how well one adjusts to how different the game is from Transformed, especially if they really loved that game.

 

You know what. It's actually quite fun. I was just being a dumbass.

 

I'm not liking it so far. No weight to the carts, too much stuff going off at once, no Back 2 Back for Water Palace is the biggest sin.

 

I'm experiencing the monster truck spam. Lol. I think it would be more balanced if you only had one item and couldn't store them.

 

I really wanted to like the game, but it overloads my senses at pretty much all times. I'm normally super positive on almost any media, and it's rare for me to dislike a game, but I'm having trouble with this one.

The audio is a muddy mess yet simultaneously somehow really aggressive -- dull music that blends into the sheer amount of noise going on until the third lap where it instead blasts you with the extremely loud (and frankly overdone) chorus. Maybe I'd like the music more if I could hear it much of the time but the chorus was only neat for a couple races then quickly felt really excessive.

The visuals are similarly 'loud', with constant flashing and things coming in from all sides, at all times. It's hard to keep track of what's going on at any given moment, especially with how fast things happen and resolve.

It feels like the game is worried to death that it will lose your attention for even a nanosecond, so it's constantly throwing things at you to keep that attention, desperately. It is constantly Way Too Much.

The overall handling feels really good, though there is indeed very little sense of weight to the cars, and that bothers me a bit. I love the idea of being able to make your own car, but I dislike that we traded each character having their own default car to get it. It's nice that characters are still very distinct in terms of stats even with custom cars being a thing, though.

What's more, the way rings are laid out means that for the most part, all the rings will just be taken by the people who are already doing best in the race -- the fast get faster. And the power-up/item system is, so far, a mess.

The menus are... okay... but a little unnecessarily lacking in labels and general sense of flow. It's criminal there's no volume configuration or indeed very little configuration of any kind right now; no control configuration, no sound settings, no voice language toggle, absolutely nothing but a small few assist settings you can toggle and a toggle to make the controls more like Team Sonic Racing.

Given the core gameplay feels good at all, there is something here, I think. But after only 5 or 6 races the game started to give me a literal, actual headache, and if it launches in this kind of state, I can't imagine sticking with it instead of just going back to Transformed.

I really wish Transformed had a modern re-release. (Even the PC version has a lot of issues on many modern systems, which sucks so much!)

I so much wish I could be positive on this game and I hope it improves dramatically in these ways by release.

 

I have not played it but I must say it is nice to have a Sonic game that is visually appealing again. Not counting Classic stuff, it has been almost 14 years.

 

The "Sound Mixing" thing has to do with the Loudness wars, wasn't it?

 

I don’t get this, they respawn instantaneously, lots of rings everywhere unless who you glued to other racers in which case you are already doing good

 

Not the experience I was having with them, and the moment you've bumped into anything or gotten hit you've lost a bunch; it feels like a mechanic that could just really use some extra care.
I'm not against the idea of it. I do think it's partly why Mario Kart has historically kept its coins spread out across the track instead of in rows like this though.

Edit: It's also pretty common to be 'glued to someone' while stuck in say, 7th place, sadly. The short tracks means the space between racers is often pretty small in general.

 

Monster truck spam is insane. I hope they've already realised what an dreadfully unfun and abuseable mechanic that is.

With any luck, they're going to remove item storage almost entirely. In the current build, everyone can hold two items by default just like in MK8D, and with a 2-slot gear mod you can hold up to three items. However, these courses are very short and item boxes are everywhere, so I think that needs to be changed. By default everyone should only be able to hold one item and that should be upgraded to two items with a 3-slot gear mod. That would greatly reduce the amount of item spam, as you'd only get it from players who have focused on an item-centric build at the cost of other strategies.

And on that note, the strategies you get from gear mods are definitely going to be one of the games strengths. I've been enjoying builds focused on bashing into other players for both speed boosts and rings. But having said that, the quick tricks skill is currently hilariously broken to the point that it's almost foolish not to use it. Again, it needs some balancing. Beta build and that blah blah blah.

I think that this game is going to be really good. It needs more time in the oven yet though.

 

Very glad we have a Sonic Team that does more playtests and public/private betas so we can have these kind of discussions before the game comes out at $50-60 and its reputation is tarnished forever lol

They definitely want this to be a game that lasts long, and it's entirely possible that even a year after release, all of the feedback and input would result in a quite different game. I'm honestly most excited for that because goddamn did they leave Team Sonic Racing to the wolves.

 

Yeah the gears are a lot of fun. I like playing eggman and whacking into everything.

 

I like it a lot overall but think it has some huge issues they hopefully fix. Starting with the positive..

+I love the crossworlds gimmick, rare seeing sonic games do something genuinely really impressive other games haven't started replicating yet.
+I've seen some people complain about the pacing but I think the snappy feeling of each race feels great, very get in-get out, lots of new ideas fastballed at you in a short time. if they tightened up the lobbies(see below) I think it could be really cool.
+wasn't so hot on the handling at first but it seems like the main thing is that they've maybe left too much in the hands of the player. you can build something that turns alright with some tweaking and gets even more fun when you realize this is more like an arcade racing game where you need to drift all the time.
+perks will give this game a lot of personality so long as the balance is there. I liked the drift focused perks the best but quick trick seems to be the "meta" like everyone's been saying already. Overall customs feel more meaningful than any MK game with the feature, which will help this game stand out more imo.
+art style isn't perfect but there's a lot more setpieces and "wow" moments than any other recent Sonic game I've played. The courses are filled with personality and the first time you do a crossworld genuinely is very impressive.
+Voice acting seems stronger than normal overall this time? This was the biggest surprise.
+The saved kart builds cuts down on a lot of the needless menuing the system has the potential to add.
+Online seems to work pretty well this time? Only crashes I've had were pre the match starting.
+I like the amount of routes in the tracks overall. Transformed had strong track design but it felt pretty linear. Feels like they're experimenting a little more with splits and shortcuts this time.
+There's a little bit of arcade bite here with stuff like wall taps taking rings, slipstreams, and the drift system. They should lean into this more. More below.

-The trick system is my biggest letdown. They feel good to do but with no fail state and a lot less of that ability to microadjust your positioning like Transformed it feels like the worst of both worlds. Just kind of a Sonic Colorsy lets do it to say we did it mechanic.
-Races are really snappy, I think the game would be really addicting if the lobbies weren't so sluggish esp since all the decisions are made already. Just let the computer pick the next stage!
-I see peope down on the soundtrack but it sounds less bad to me and more outright unfinished. I think most of the melodies are good so it'll get better once they work on it some more. not too worried about it but I figure I'll bring it up?
-Transformed was a super polished game and this...definetly isn't lol? It's unpolished in a fun, Sonicy way for the most part but occasionally you'll get glitches like getting stuck in crossworld gates and network crashes.
-Item balance is all over the place. I've seen a lot of people say they're too strong but I've actually had the opposite experience just as often, where most of them don't actually slow anyone down enough to make a difference. You don't get any of those last second clutch shell moments from Mario Kart here. Either the items do nothing or flip the table.
-Visual clutter is through the roof, I think it's not as bad once you get the hang of it and some of the UI choices like bigger text and indicators when you hit someone with an item are helpful, but yeah once you get to that last lap the shit goes sideways really quick lmao.
-This is more of a personal problem but I can't figure out what the game wants from me in the boat sections with no drift lmao. I keep hitting the walls here. I see people handling them fine so there's probably something to it that I don't get.