Sonic Racing: Crossworlds evaluation
Have to know
What’s it? An all-out Sonic kart racer able to rival the Italian plumber’s personal providing
Launch date: September 25, 2025
Anticipate to pay: $70/£65
Developer: Sonic Staff
Writer: SEGA
Reviewed on: Nvidia GeForce RTX3070, AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT, 32GB RAM
Steam Deck: Verified
Hyperlink: Official web site
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is so messy and irritating that I typically query why I prefer it a lot. Objects are horribly balanced, and on-line matches are rife with gamers sandbagging and hoarding all the nice objects till the ultimate stretch—that’s, in the event you may even get to that time earlier than the sport throws an error at you and boots you again to the foyer.
Gotta go-kart quick
It is definitely a sport propped up by three many years of historical past: A roster made up of your go-to franchise mascots paired with lesser-seen folks like Zazz, Vector, and even Frontiers’ Sage. Ranges from the likes of Sonic Journey 2 and Sonic Unleashed have been given the “what if a bunch of automobiles and hoverboards have been whizzing by this place?” therapy, and tracks from Sonic’s older races are again in barely altered types, too.
It is mainly a Sonic-themed who’s-who, with a dizzying variety of easter eggs that will go proper over the pinnacle of a primary bitch Sonic fan like myself (I simply actually like Shadow the Hedgehog), however may have longtime blue blur nerds going wild for it.
At the same time as somebody who cannot deeply admire each wink-wink-nudge-nudge, I completely cherished CrossWorlds’ tracks. I used to be anticipating a linearity much like Mario Kart, however was as an alternative met with a large number of off-road paths, verticality, and not-so-obvious shortcuts that afford a great deal of alternative ways to experiment and shave valuable seconds off every lap time.
There is a chaos within the constant-shifting nature of CrossWorlds’ tracks—bog-standard on-the-ground driving is frequently lower by segments that require extra finicky drifting by the air or preventing towards rip-roaring currents as I consistently leap and trick throughout the water.
Catch-up evaluation
There have been a number of video games final yr that we did not have time to evaluation, so we’re kicking off 2026 by rectifying a few of these omissions. Sorry we’re late!
As if that wasn’t already sufficient, CrossWorlds has one other gimmick tucked up its sleeve: a portal that whizzes me to a completely completely different observe mid-race. Loads of these second lap choices solely exist as simply that, that means you may’t do a full race on them. It is a bummer, and since that is the case I want Sonic Staff had gone extra experimental with how these quick, snappy choices pan out. Glimmers of it seem in Hidden World and Magma Planet, but it surely by no means pushes them far sufficient.
It does not assist that it did not take lengthy for the CrossWorlds’ novelty to put on off. A few of them are far worse than others (I hate Galactic Parade with a ardour), and the transitions between common racetracks and CrossWorlds are jarring and, extra upsettingly, boring. It is the identical each single time: straight street into the portal (cut up into two selections), drive by the portal, a flash of white and increase. Subsequent observe loaded in. It is uninspired, for one, but it surely additionally makes mastering every course considerably tougher when there’s one much less lap to follow.
It is a crossover
Fortunately, there’s been loads of alternatives for me to rinse the tracks time and again, principally due to the ridiculous stage of customisation CrossWorlds has. It sports activities 5 completely different automobile sorts—Velocity, Energy, Acceleration, Dealing with, and Increase—every with completely different designs and playstyles.
I like that the roster is not sure to at least one specific machine both, so I can fortunately stick a beast like Massive the Cat on a dinky little hoverboard with out CrossWorlds making an attempt to cease me. There is a ton of beauty stuff I can do to them as properly, creating bespoke automobiles or monster vehicles for each single racer I take advantage of. Does that imply Man Fieri-ing the hell out of each single machine I take advantage of once I play Shadow? It certain as hell does. I love methods to make characters really feel like my very own, and kart customisation is completely the way in which to make that occur.
It isn’t simply aesthetics that CrossWorlds provides you free reign over, both. Devices are one of many core components of crafting a construct, and I used to be given a ton of choices to tailor-fit my playstyle. It is overwhelming at first—a gadget board is just six slots, and I’ve to unlock every one by merely enjoying extra. There’s such an enormous mixture of generic and area of interest modifiers (like beginning the race with a specific merchandise, or rising the probabilities of sure ones spawning) that I wasn’t certain the place to begin.
As soon as I began determining how completely different devices might synergise with one another, although—like pairing devices that will shortly replenish my ring depend from issues like tricking and dashing to offer me a pleasant acceleration increase—it felt like I used to be lastly capable of finding methods to enhance my manner of enjoying.
In fact, as is the case with these sorts of issues, it suffers from a nasty case of meta-brain in terms of on-line play. It limits the scope of what I can do considerably if I am not toying round in a Grand Prix or Time Trial which I do not love, however balancing one thing like that is at all times going to be tough. It is one thing that, so far as I can inform, Sonic Staff has been engaged on making rather less meta-heavy too, which I’ll ceaselessly admire.
Error 1-2-2
Truthfully, my greatest issues actually do lie with the net performance. It is fairly poor for starters—in my time with the sport I used to be consistently stricken by errors and booted out to the foyer mid-race for seemingly no cause in any respect. That makes it arduous sufficient to abdomen as is, however merchandise balancing is by far the most important subject plaguing Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds proper now.
There was nothing extra irritating than once I was doing properly in a race, solely to have a slew of power-up monster vehicles decimate me as a result of those that’d snagged the objects early on had held onto them till the very finish of the race. It is a balancing system that encourages sandbagging, hanging across the again of the pack and hoarding good objects till it is time to let ’em all rip and fly to the entrance of the pack earlier than first place is aware of what hit them.
It is a crappy technique, one which brings the ability ceiling various storeys decrease than it ought to be. It makes enjoying on-line hardly any enjoyable in any respect, and I could not assist however discover myself wanting to return to CrossWorlds’ offline modes or shut the sport altogether.
I might additionally argue that CrossWorlds, because it stands, is a contact on the costly aspect. I’ve to sit down right here and ask myself if, had I paid full whack for this sport, would I be comfortable about it? My stingy tendencies apart, I might need to say no. Asking $70 for a Grand Prix, Time Trial, and barely-working on-line mode feels cheeky at greatest, insulting at worst.
Pair that with the entire DLC racers Sonic Staff is chucking in like Pac-Man, SpongeBob, and Minecraft Steve (cool characters, however none of them voiced which actually dampens the entire “rival beefing” system) and the worth begins racking up much more. I am not one to declare what pricepoint a sport ought to ship with, however it might definitely be a far simpler advice if it shed 15 to twenty bucks.
In the end, whether or not or not it’s best to decide up CrossWorlds depends upon your precedence. Need strong netcode and a kart racer with a excessive ability ceiling? Possibly await a sale. Need a enjoyable, Easter egg-laden Sonic racing sport that is ridiculously chaotic and filled with methods to fine-tune issues to completely suit your playstyle? These 70 {dollars} is likely to be price it.