Xbox Gamers Treated To September Freebie, No Game Pass Needed

The year’s second most anticipated racer is about to arrive, and you can sample it for free very soon.

Yes, I’m talking about SEGA’s Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.

Listen, I’m very excited for the title but you can’t deny that it’s tricky business launching a racer the same year that the long-awaited follow-up to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe dropped.

That being said, not everybody loved Mario Kart World’s one-lap races and open-world formula, so perhaps Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will actually fare better.

The game seems to be adopting the normal multi-lap formula; the unique twist here is that you’ll travel between worlds during races, hence ‘CrossWorlds’.

There are 24 tracks in total and 15 CrossWorlds; it’s the leader of the race who gets to choose between two Travel Rings, determining which CrossWorld it is that players traverse through.

The game also boasts 45 vehicles, 70 gadgets, 23 power-up items, and a roster of over 23 iconic Sonic characters - the largest in any Sonic game.

That list features Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles, Tails, Big The Cat, Amy Rose, Eggman, Espio, Jet, Omega, Cream, Sage, Metal Sonic, Vector, Storm, Silver, and Wave.

A ton of crossover characters are also set to be included with Hatsune Miku, Kasuga Ichiban, Joker (Persona), Minecraft Steve, Creeper, SpongeBob, Patrick, and Pac-Man due to appear.

If you want to get a feel for what Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has to offer, a demo is set to drop on 17 September on Xbox Series X/S as well as PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

The exact drop time is 12am EST / 5am BST / 6am CEST / 1pm JST.

The demo is set to be an offline single-player experience only, which’ll obviously differ to the full release where you can battle it out online.

Even still, that’s a great opportunity for you to sample Sonic Racing: CrossWorld’s mechanics.

Beyond this, little else has been said, so I can’t particularly tell you how many laps or characters you’ll get to try out.

As a reminder, the full release is due out on 25 September with the title also landing on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One; those platforms just aren’t receiving the demo.

A Nintendo Switch 2 version is also in the works with a release date yet to be confirmed.

There’s also the Digital Deluxe Edition if you want to secure three days early access.

So many options to choose from.