Sonic Racing CrossWorlds preview: Mario Kart World has competition

I’m a Sonic The Hedgehog fan. It's true, on a personal level the blue blur can do no wrong but on a professional level I’ve always managed to stay objective when it comes to his games, both in terms of the good and the bad.

That’s why you should believe me when I tell you that Sonic Racing CrossWorlds has legs, or should I say wheels, and could genuinely compete with Mario Kart World for the best kart racer of 2025.

Playing the game for a second time this year, the first being the open-network test, I got to have a go at a few more characters than last time, as well as new vehicles and new maps to race one.

As usual, I picked Shadow The Hedgehog, my favourite Sonic character, and stuck him on an Extreme Gear as Sonic Riders was one of my favourite games growing up and I was ecstatic to see the hoverboards return after such a long time.

After racing through a Grand Prix and a half I can confidently say it’s still just as much fun as the network test, and we’re only scraping the surface of what the game has to offer.

There are so many characters in the game that weren’t playable at this year’s Summer Game Fest, and while I’d have loved to play as Hatsune Miku or Joker from Persona 5 it was Sonic characters only in today’s demo roster.

It was still good fun though, and for those who complained the speed of the game felt too slow during the network test, good news, I spied some settings to make things quicker like Mario Kart’s CC settings.

My only gripe with the game is the Extreme Gear boards controlled pretty much the same way as the cars. In a perfect world they’d play like they did in the Sonic Riders games and have places on the tracks that only they could interact with, but sadly that’s not the case.

Nevertheless I’m excited to play more, and with free post-launch support already confirmed combined with the customisation options for the karts/boards I think we’re witnessing the arrival of a genuine competitor for Mario Kart World, but I’m sure they can happily coexist alongside one another.