SEGA's new Sonic racer could rival Mario Kart 9 if it locks in

Throughout 2025, we’re going to be getting two colossal racing games, Sonic Racing CrossWorlds and Mario Kart 9.

While I’m excited for both, especially playing them on the Nintendo Switch 2, I have a sneaky feeling that with the right approach, the new Sonic racing game could take the lead over Nintendo’s flagship racer. Let me explain.

First though, take a look at the all-new Nintendo Switch 2 below, the announcement of which features a tiny glimpse at the new Mario Kart game.

Sonic CrossWorlds will seemingly introduce some sort of dimensional travel to the racing series. It’s unclear how it’ll work in gameplay and what “worlds” Sonic and his friends will cross through, but if it involves cruising through different dimensions and timelines from previous games and other Sonic media, I’m all for it.

We sort of saw a glimpse of it already through Sonic X Shadow Generations and its DLC to promote Sonic The Hedgehog 3, which saw Shadow pass through a gold ring that transports him to the movie universe, changing his appearance and voice to match his environment. If that’s what we can look forward to in Sonic CrossWorlds, that's a very exciting idea that has a lot of potential for the race tracks and character roster.

Mario Kart 9, on the other hand, is rumoured to have some sort of pitstop mechanic, where your kart’s parts and durability are not a factor in the race. That sounds great if it’s the case, but take it with a pinch of salt as we won’t know for sure until presumably the next Nintendo Direct.

So here’s how I think Sonic CrossWorlds could edge ahead of Mario Kart 9, by reembracing the style of the Sonic The Hedgehog series. In the trailer for the game, fans quickly spotted what appears to be an Extreme Gear on the wall, one of the hoverboards used in the Sonic Riders games. Now it could just be an Easter egg but I think we can all agree SEGA has been embracing the past more than ever in recent games, so I’d bet money boards and cars will be an option much like Mario Kart gave you the choice between karts and bikes.

SEGA

But why stop there? I was replaying Sonic R for the SEGA Saturn the other day and thought it’d be great to see the more speedier Sonic characters have the option to just run through the tracks. It’s always been weird seeing Sonic in cars anyway. I get he uses them to make it fair for the other racers and maybe he just thinks they’re neat, but it’s never quite made sense. Same with Shadow.

In Sonic CrossWorlds, let’s have the player choose their mode of transport, with certain rewards or paths to take on the tracks that can only be accessed in a car, or on a board or on foot. It’d make it interesting and if the main gimmick is travelling between dimensions, the players will likely be all over the place anyway. Why not split them up more based on how they’ve chosen to travel?

Developers can then push the envelope further with more guest characters. SEGA have always been keen to see their different franchises crossover in funny ways like this, and I’d love to see Joker from Persona 5 Royal and Kiryu from the Yakuza games lapping Sonic characters. Nintendo will likely have a few guest characters of its own in Mario Kart 9 but I think SEGA could definitely feature more.

Of course, this is all friendly competition. Mario Kart will forever have more appeal to the majority of people but who’s to say we can’t have two video game characters dominating the racing scene at the same time? I’ll be picking up both games regardless of what they’re like but as a lifelong Sonic fan I’d love to see Sonic CrossWorlds at least on par with the current Mario Kart game.

I’d also accept Sonic being a guest racer in Mario Kart 9 though … it won’t happen, but a man can dream.