Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds turns every race into a detour. Mid-lap, a Travel Ring opens and the pack warps into a different dimension entirely. Sonic Team built a kart racer around the idea that the track you started on is not the track you finish on, and it works.
Trailer, via SEGA.
Travel Rings and the CrossWorld mechanic
The CrossWorld mechanic is the headline, and it earns the billing. Racers warp between tracks mid-race, so a three-lap run can cross land, sea, air, space and time before the finish line. It keeps every lap from settling into muscle memory.
Underneath, this is a kart racer in the Mario Kart mold. Drifting builds speed through tight turns, and consecutive mid-air tricks after ramps pay out boosts. Rings scattered around each track raise your top speed, and you lose them on contact with walls, obstacles or rivals. Item capsules do the rest.
Cars transform into boats and planes mid-race, as in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Extreme Gear hoverboards return from the Sonic Riders sub-series.
A roster of 54, and a garage to match
CrossWorlds launched with 24 playable characters, one unlockable, and has grown since. Free monthly updates are planned to add 13 characters in the first year. A premium season pass adds 15 guest characters across six waves, including three from the animated series Sonic Prime. As of September 8, 2026, the roster stands at 54.
Characters are no longer locked to a single vehicle. Each has its own stats, and cars fall into four classes:
- Speed
- Acceleration
- Power
- Handling
A fifth type, Boost, belongs to Extreme Gear alone. There are 45 vehicles to unlock, plus a part-combining system for building custom rides.
Where the single-player runs thin
The customization is the deepest the series has had, and the racing underneath it is sharp. The weak spot is everything around the racing. Single-player content is thin, and the downloadable guest characters are presented poorly, dropped in without the care their arrival deserves.
Sega is already developing a second year of content, paid and free. That is the right call, because the foundation here is strong enough to carry it.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is the best Sonic has raced in years, and the CrossWorld hook is the reason. It freshens a genre that usually survives on polish alone. The roster bloat and the thin solo mode are real, but they are fixable. The racing is not the problem.
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