Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Coming Sep. 25, 2025

Erm actually, we had Gun Soldiers in Episodes 1 and 3 of Dark Beginnings, including that one GUN Solider in a Fighter Jet that Shadow interacted with

 

Given Professor Victoria and the fact that she looks to follow similar design guidelines to Maria and Gerald in Shadow Gens, I think they're planning a "human relaunch" in the next mainline game, and just don't want to open that can of worms in a racing title.

I say that as someone who ALSO raised an eyebrow at the lack of humans and abundance of Islanders/Mobians/Nermies at Metal Harbor...

Then again, I also thought "didn't Metal Harbor blow up with Prison Island in SA2?" but now I'm entering "Why is the Moon whole again?" territory.

 

Holding out for b-roll footage with the actual music audible

 

As someone who passionately went to bat for HE2, I might have to eat humble pie on this one. I do still find Shadow Generations' efforts with the tech impressive, but the lighting on show in CrossWorlds is just something else. That and UE is pretty much industry standard, so it does make logistical sense for Sonic Team to move their pipeline onto this much more pervasive platform that's bound to be very well explored and documented by now. In that sense, such a move would do even more to help Sonic Team expand as needed for a project like "Frontiers 2" as opposed to having to spend time getting new hires to grips with the proprietary tech.

 

I'm not sure if it used HE2 but I remember being pretty impressed with the lighting and water effects in Mario & Sonic 2020


that's the ideal artstyle imho, Frontiers 2 doesn't need to be super photorealistic.

I'm all in favour of UE5 going forwards though.

 

So the reason this uses UE is because of the teams previous 2 projects, SWDC and Initial D, have used UE. Currently, Sega's strategy for using engines seems to more about a case by case basis with games already having ongoing series (like Yakuza) iterating on propretiary tech, while new projects and remakes (like Crazy Taxi, Monkey Ball and JSR) that don't resemble currently on going series use either Unity or Unreal.

 

Like a Draagon : Ishin used unreal engine, even though other RGG titles are still using their Dragon engine.
I'm thinking this was because they wanted to import the assets of the old game and engine to a modern one but they couldn't do it with Dragon Engine, that engine still has trouble handling physics (Recent titles still don't have a bowling minigame and in Judgement they used Unity engine to make a pinball game). I'm not sure on the details for the new Virtua Fighter they're developing.
Now with this game, I don't know either.
Did sumo digital's racing games use Sega/Sonic team's tech before? Or something else?

 

Within Sega, the first to use Unreal Engine was the arcade division (House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn most prominently), around 2018. This spread to the console teams in the 2020s as they merged with them. As I said the team was previously developing Initial D: The Arcade, it makes sense to use what they know instead of learning HE2.

Sumo Digital used their own engine which was derived from working with ports of OutRun 2 and Virtua Tennis, at least that was the case during AllStars Racing in 2010. We don't know the relationship or agreement is with Sega with all the assets that Sumo has created, but I imagine it is similar how Sonic Team got access to Headcannons ports of Classic Sonic games for Sonic Origins.

EITHER WAY, I am very much looking forward to that lenghty Famitsu interview they are gonna have with the Dev Team. These always end up super informative.

 

Dragon engine doesn't have trouble importing old assets -they reuse old assets all the time-
The thing with Ishin was them testing the waters, they even said so, trying the unreal engine on a side project and see if they do want to continue using it in the future, they may return to it when they want to do an engine upgrade, but for the time being they are comfortable with Dragon engine and it suits their needs

 

I am aware of the asset reuse, for the kiwmai remakes they basically imported the cutscenes from the ps2 games, but with Ishin, which is a remake of a ps3 game, they also use the same mechanics, enemies function similarly, combat functions similarly and etc. , meanwhile the kiwami games are all around different mechanically.
It's still kind of a ps3 game.
When i say they're reusing assets for Ishin, i specifically mean mechanics too.
And I was wondering if it's the same case for Sonic Racing games.

 

Not sure if anyones noticed this but when Sonic does trick jump he can sometimes make the Sonic Adventure pose. It's a small thing but that's the kind of pandering I like. Can't wait to see how they are going to exploit my money with preorder bonuses. SEGA know what they've been doing lately with the Rabbit and MechaSonic in Superstars and Terios in Shadow Gens. Forget that Prime stuff, Where's the stuff for real losers. I don't know? Mech Sonic from Sonic 3AK skin for £10. Capitalism is bad except when I like it.

 

I hate the fact that I know I would immediately put down the money for that, because S3&K Mecha Sonic is my favorite "robot Sonic" design in the series hahahahah

 

oh but then go even deeper and give him a skin for his scrapnik island variant...

This gaame looks really good already, im extremely hopeful

 

This game looks very, very good. I was hesitant watching the two trailers we've gotten, but after seeing uncut gameplay footage in the couple of previews that have come out ill say im impressed. It looks to have all of the best elements of the sonic racing games of the past, but with enough fresh new stuff mixed in to keep it feeling new. I'm super excited about the addition of the extreme gear from riders and the visuals are also about on par with that of shadow generations, which is refreshingly consistent quality from sonic team after frontiers had fairly mediocre visuals.

I will say though I am sad that there aren't any SEGA characters in the base roster, I know they might add some with DLC and such but still, it would be pretty funny to see sonic, kiryu, joker, and angry birds red all in a racing game together (maybe even get miku in there considering SEGA does her games). But I guess the whole sega all stars aspect never pushed sales in the first place, the kids buying were always just getting it for sonic.. ah well, hopefully the teased DLC will be better in that regard.

 

Reminder that both Hatsune Miku and Godzilla was in Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, so there's definely a chance of both of them being in Sonic Racing: CrossRoads.

 

Even the Rider's games had unlockable SEGA characters. I don't doubt for a second we're gonna get them here too

 

Man, it's a shame All-Stars Racing Transformed was before Like a Dragon/Yakuza exploded in popularity. I bet Kiryu (or someone, at least) would've been a shoe-in. I wonder what they would've come up with for him, assuming he wouldn't have just gotten the arcade vehicles while Shenmue kept his forklift. Maybe Tanimura could've driven the boat or Date flown the plane helicopter or something, considering Yakuza 4 would've been the most recent (mainline) at the time.

 

https://x.com/racecrossworlds/status/1890944185068356021?s=46&t=iD8Ot2UlRarXXEvY7uvdMw



- Sonic's Trick Voice Clips are the SA2 Style Titles

Neat, also I wanna eat that UI, it's that crisp

 

someone mentioned this on twitter but is this game the first time a racing game has been developed by an internal SEGA team since Sonic Free Riders? Pretty interesting when you consider SEGA's history with arcade racers.