Mario Kart World rival locks playable character behind $60 paywall despite offline-only use

Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is finally adding a character everyone has wanted, but it’ll cost you $60 for something that can’t be used online.

The Mario Kart rival actually had the best chance ever to overtake Nintendo’s console-selling spin-off. Mario Kart World was great, but it lacked the staying power previous games in the series have, and the lack of meaningful DLC expansions hasn’t helped either.

Sonic Racing: Crossworlds hasn’t had that problem. A steady supply of new characters, stages, soundtrack and customisation options has helped the racer stay relevant as it speeds into its second year of DLC support.

The next content drop comes with a pretty massive caveat, though, and it’s understandably rubbing fans the wrong way.

Sonic Racing: Crossworlds repeats the sins of the past with its new Super Shadow DLC

On November 3, Super Shadow and three new vehicles will become available as paid DLC add-ons.

The three vehicles are modelled after SEGA consoles: the SEGA Genesis, SEGA Saturn and SEGA Dreamcast. To add this trio to your garage, you need to purchase the Year 2 Season Pass, which costs $29.99.

However, for Super Shadow you need both the Year 1 and Year 2 Season Pass, which comes to around $60.

If that wasn’t egregious enough, Super Shadow cannot be used in online races. He’ll only be playable in offline modes.

SEGA

This is because, like Super Sonic, who’s unlocked by completing the game, Super Shadow has excellent stats and is immune to all incoming damage.

Now you can understand why this duo might be banned from online play in their base states. It’d be unfair to race against an opponent that can’t be stopped. That said, there’s a very easy solution: JUST TAKE AWAY THE INVINCIBILITY, SEGA.

Fans have been screaming about this since the game first came out, and they’re screaming even louder now that one of these top-tier characters is locked behind a $60 paywall.

“WHY CAN'T WE USE THE SUPER FORMS, ONLINE MAN. Such a stupid rule; just make them skins for the original characters,” replied one fan to SEGA’s announcement post on X.

“Can you please just get rid of Super Sonic and Shadow's invincibility and nerf their stats so we could use them online” said another.

Sonic Racing: Crossworld’s Season Pass scheme has another glaring problem

Aside from being $30 each, there’s another problem with what Sonic Racing: Crossworld offers through Season Pass extensions; they’re crossover slop.

Now I don’t mean that to sound overly negative, as there are some crossovers that I actually like. Any characters from actual video games are cool to see, like Mega Man, Pac-Man, Minecraft’s Steve, etc. Steve’s been popping up in a lot of games recently, but not in a good way.

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Some of the other crossover characters are just bizarre, though. SpongeBob SquarePants and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are good examples. I’d have much rather had some actual Sonic characters, and stages inspired by other games in the series.

Adding insult to injury is the lack of dialogue. In the base game’s roster, all characters have unique interactions with each other, but the DLC characters are all pretty much mute. It’s quite jarring and sort of sucks the fun out of playing as them. They lack personality, which is ironic considering so many of them are larger-than-life characters with heaps of personality in their respective IPs.

As much as I like Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed with the Season Pass content.

Should the game get a third year of support, I’d hope SEGA reassess its current offering, as for $30 each I just don’t think there’s enough content to warrant the price. Especially when it gives you characters you can’t use online.

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