Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, the latest entry in the blue blur’s kart racing spin-off series, has a core conceit that Sonic, his friends, and his enemies are racing through portals to other tracks, and they might not always be in their own universe when they reach the other side. I’ve been enjoying my time with Crossworlds a whole lot, but I’ve only been playing as my favorite boy, Shadow the Hedgehog, and even after I unlock crossover characters like Hatsune Miku, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Persona 5’s Joker, I still won’t stray far from the hedgehog I showed up for. Though I haven’t gotten to put much time into online play during the review period, I played a fair bit of it during the beta and had a blast with its fast-paced but strategic racing. I just wish Crossworlds wasn’t also the latest example of corporate IP consolidation, when Sonic’s signature, stylish flair more than carries it past the finish line.
Fortnite has certainly exacerbated my crossover fatigue, but even though it has become the quintessential example of a video game dumping every IP its owners can afford into one big pot of sludge, my distaste for the act of tossing a bunch of unrelated characters and references into one game definitely predates Epic’s battle royale. I was annoyed when the fighting game Injustice 2 incorporated the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while concept art for the warlock Constantine was gathering dust on a NetherRealm Studios server. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was packed with playable ads for upcoming games in its line-up, while major players in PlayStation history were nowhere to be seen. That’s really all the influx of crossovers is these days: ads; cynical reminders that the things we like aren’t so divided as they once were. Where once we might occasionally see Freddy and Jason fight or Timmy Turner and Jimmy Neutron trade lives, now we get a lot of cosmetics that are low-effort references to other worlds, all thrown together without rhyme or reason and almost always featuring nods to other IPs that you can also go spend money on.
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is stuffed with guest characters and crossover tracks, and it doesn’t escape my notice that almost every crossover here involves either a Sega or Paramount property. Unlike the core Sonic characters, these racers don’t have voice actors to spout any pre-race rival banter or make any sorts of exclamations when they do sick tricks or get pummeled by a competing racer’s rocket-powered boxing glove. In other words, these crossover characters are mostly just props placed in karts or on hoverboards to remind you that there are games or television shows you could be consuming other than the Sonic game you’re currently playing.
The shame of all these efforts to remind people that other games exist is that when you cut through all the distraction, you find that Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is an absolutely delightful and deep kart racer that outpaces some of its contemporaries. Crossworlds is at its best when it’s leaning into its own legacy, rather than gesturing at others. Its pre-race rival exchanges when you’re playing single-player modes and are pitted against a skilled, intelligent PC racer have some of the best one-on-one interactions much of its large roster has ever had in the series’ long history. Meanwhile, its race tracks pull from decades of Sonic games past, and feel like a grand tour through different eras of the franchise with some banger tunes to accompany them.
Part of me got a bit sentimental racing around as Shadow and seeing several homages to him specifically, such as tracks based on Radical Highway, his iconic first level from Sonic Adventure 2, and one based on his version of the White Space from Shadow Generations. It’s like the Year of Shadow never ended. Riding my sick, decked-out hoverboard on these stages was an absolute joy, until I saw motherfucking Hatsune Miku or Joker pull up next to me. Thus far, none of Crossworlds’ announced DLC characters are from Sonic games, TV, or movies, and as I see characters like Pac-Man and Steve coming down the pipeline, I’m left wondering where some more niche Sonic characters are, like Infinite from Sonic Forces or, to really swing for the fences, someone like Agent Stone from the live-action movies. Do you know how cool it would be to have one of the best characters to come out of those movies show up in a multiverse game? There’s already so much fan art of him in the games’ style, Sega. Skip the Ninja Turtles and get Lee Majdoub in the booth.
I don’t want to spend this entire write-up dunking on the crossover nonsense because when I get past that, Crossworlds is a truly exhilarating, challenging, and complex racer that deserves a lot of credit for its systems. Though it is a bit faster than, and not as weighty as, something like Mario Kart, its Gadget mechanic, which lets you customize your vehicles with different perks, is a real game-changer. My go-to kit is one that gives me a Monster Truck item at the start of the race, so I can crush half the racers under a giant wheel, then another perk that gives me a boost every time I collide with an enemy, meaning that no one can knock me off the track and into the abyss; instead, if they try, they just end up slingshotting me forward as I leave them in the dust. Choice is at the heart of Crossworlds’ racing systems, whether you’re choosing between a kart and a hoverboard or tweaking your gadgets to personalize your playstyle.
Those ideas are what elevate Crossworlds to one of Sonic’s best spin-offs in recent memory. The game is best when it’s focusing on being an extremely fun Sonic racer, rather than a billboard for other games and TV shows.
