Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Review, Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Features

Sonic Racing CrossWorlds from developer Sonic Team is the latest kart racer in the spinoff series featuring the expected beloved characters. 

While some might rush to compare CrossWorlds to Mario Kart, the game's own namesake speaks to it drifting off and doing its own thing. 

CrossWorlds doesn't just implement a new mid-race feature that mixes up courses on the fly, it goes surprisingly heavy in pre-race buildcrafting, placing an emphasis on stats, gadget selection and even player customization. 

While CrossWorlds always had the potential to be big, what's cooking here has the chance ot put it atop the list of all racers released in 2025.

Graphics and Gameplay

In a not-shocking-at-all development, CrossWorlds is a treat on the eyes. 

Across its 20-plus tracks, the game runs the gamut of locations, from volcanoes to dinosaur-infested prehistoric settings. It's all colorful, vibrant and boasts lots of shocking detail with good draw distances. 

Tack on fantastic sound design across the board and, as a  whole, CrossWorlds goes out of its way to leverage the game's different air, land and sea vehicle types to great effect in its course designs. 

It certainly helps that animations just pop off the screen, whether it's the sparks of a drift, splashes of water, or one of the many unique-feeling effects of throwables and gadgets that offer special passive abilities.

Like other genre heavyweights, this Sonic offering features players going against up to 11 opponents in a three-lap race. In this regard, it feels a bit like 2019's Team Sonic Racing, but with the team-based aspect ripped out in favor of this game's namesake feature. 

Here, players can drive through Travel Rings to CrossWorlds dimensions, which ends up playing as cool as it sounds. 

What's interesting here is that during a standard race, the player winning the race after Lap 1 gets to choose which Travel Rings appear. Lap 2 takes place in the chosen location with some random modifiers altering the course, then Lap 3 reverts to the first lap's location, albeit with some tweaks of its own, such as new shortcuts. 

That might sound like too much randomness for some players to enjoy. But the effect is pretty interesting. Survive the randomness of Lap 2, return to the stomping grounds of the first lap and attempt to get it right. It breaks up the repetitiveness of three same-feeling laps while also leaving room for some serious skill expression. 

Otherwise, CrossWorlds feeling like past Sonic racing games isn't a bad thing in any way. The major emphasis on drifting to navigate tight turns and build even more speed remains a blast. When airborne, tricks still build boost, too, adding the great-feeling risk-reward to not only track navigation, but timing things mid-air. 

Vehicles transform into the expected greatest hits, too. Taking to the waters on a boat switches the emphasis from drifting to building up a jump meter. Jumping out of the water for more tricks means more boosts, therefore speed. Taking to the air as a plane can be potent, but only if players find the proper pathing with boost gates. 

Speaking of classic things, players can collect rings around tracks to build even more speed, but drop them upon contact with obstacles or other drivers. 

Also like the kart racer featuring a certain red plumber, players can pick up items that either provide personal buffs or attack other drivers on the course. There are a lot of these that make thematic sense to the Sonic world and are fun to use. 

Grand Prix and More

CrossWorlds isn't content to throw players a normal Grand Prix and call it a day. 

This game's Grand Prix features four races in a row, but with a twist. The final race features a lap from each of the prior three tracks and a Rival mechanic means one seemingly randomly selected character will gun harder for the player's character than the rest. Finishing higher than said rival rewards extra goodies by the end. 

Otherwise, it's a standard Grand Prix where players battle for overall point leaderboard standings. The Rival mechanic is very noticeable and good fun, though, setting one AI out from the pack. And the emphasis on mastering three courses before they all actually matter in the final race is a really fun idea. 

CrossWorlds also boasts a standard Time Trial mode and a little arcade spin-off called Race Park, which is a party-like mode found in other arcade racers. 

Depth beyond races themselves on tracks comes in the form of light buildcrafting beforehand. There are different classes of vehicles in the game and characters aren't restricted to just one. 

Vehicles have different stats across prominent categories:

• Speed
• Acceleration
• Power 
• Handling
• Boost

It's not just surface-level depth, either. There are more than 40 vehicles in the game at launch. Players can also make their own custom rides, assembling unlocked parts in their own creations. 

Gadgets also create pre-race strategy and depth. The game proclaims 70-plus of these to choose from and the most notable offer little passive buffs, like greater automatic ring collection around the player's ride. They're not all necessarily race-altering passives, but it sure doesn't hurt to have the option when it comes to little bonuses and buildcrafting-lite features. 

Progression-wise, CrossWorlds feels fair enough. Players earn tickets over time that lead to unlocking things like new paint and decal options for a nice little layer of added customization. 

Post-launch support promises new characters, potentially including some from other SEGA franchises. Sonic characters will be free additions, while planned season passes can feature the SEGA characters.

Beyond must-haves in the options, CrossWorlds features four different difficulty settings (speed options). It runs well and hits on all important modern items like local multiplayer and crossplay online.

Conclusion

CrossWorlds is a super-impressive kart racer. 

It's one thing to nail down everyone's favorite characters in an arcade racer with some quirky powerups and a presentation package that hits the necessary highs of modern hardware.

CrossWorlds boldly mixes up multiple of the tried-and-true game modes to great effect, though, offers up a boatload of content in the process and goes surprisingly deep on the buildcrafting front. The planned post-launch support to become something of a live service sounds promising, too. 

As a kart racer, CrossWorlds won't boost out of its niche genre to greater heights. But it's a heavyweight in the area, will stick around for a long time and hopefully inspire others in the future with its bold innovations that move the genre in refreshing directions.