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Over the weekend of August 29th to September 1st, the open network beta for the upcoming Sonic Racing: Crossworlds took place, giving us players the chance to check the game out and try out a few maps and modes, both online and offline. I have to say, the game is shaping up to be a good racing game and another fun Sonic Racing entry, but I do have some small qualms about a few things, some of which I do hope gets fixed prior to release.
The beta had a few modes open - Time Trial, Grand Prix, and Online - and, for my time with the game, I played the Grand Prix mostly, so I will be focused on that and the Time Trial, though I will mention that I had no connection issues with the online functionality, outside of some minor lag but that was to be expected. As for the Grand Prix, the beta only had one cup with three tracks to race on, but these three tracks had a cool little gimmick: As you get closer to the checkpoint, two rings pop up - one with a named world and one with a randomly chosen world - and you choose which one you and the other racers will race on for the second lap. These can range from a pirate world to worlds filled with lava serpents, pink dinosaurs of the non-Barney variety, and hot air balloons (Actually, that world was annoying cause of how easy it was to fly off the tracks), with more to come, I assume, when the game fully releases. This, alone, was a cool feature and I enjoyed how they spiced up the races to where not one race will be the same. The only catch is that, if you want to choose what world you go to, then you need to be in first place and drive towards the ring you want, otherwise the opponent will get to choose. As for the three tracks, they were fun to race through and I did enjoy the artstyle of each map. Though, I did have a laugh at the NPC animations at the starting line with how simple they were. I also want to say the music was pretty decent. Nothing really groundbreaking but the tracks played do fit the locals perfectly and the racing on a whole. I do have a question regarding it, however: Is it me or did the track that played on the final lap of each race sound eerily similar to the Sonic Boom theme?
Anyway, back to the maps themselves, the three on offer for the Grand Prix were E Stadium, Water Palace, and Rainbow Garden. Each track, again, was nicely designed and fun to race through, but that does bring me to my first little issue I had and that is the turning just never felt right. No matter what character I used, drifting and turning always felt either too loose or too tight. Now, I’m pretty decent at drifting in kart racers, but it felt like, no matter how well I timed it, I always smacked into the wall or drove onto the grass, losing top speed and/or rings. I do like how drifting for so long can get you a nice boost of speed, which you can get a max of 4, though it did seem a bit marginal in terms of boost. I did find that by using a character with good handling and mixing it with a vehicle with good acceleration, I was able to get the turning feeling slightly better, but it was still a little loose at times. Not enough to actually make the racing bad or anything but it was just enough to make me go “Hm, something’s off here”. Same goes with the speed as it never felt like I was going fast at all, which is a weird thing to say in a Sonic game. Like, there were times where I could see and feel I was hitting that speed limit but, then, feel like I’m struggling to go fast even though I was hitting top speed. Now, this was slightly circumvented with collecting 100 rings as, the more rings you have, the better your speed which is a neat idea, though I wasn’t too much of a fan of how easy it was to lose rings. It felt like even the slightest touch made my character spit out rings. My other issue was how easy it was to get sent back multiple positions by the AI. Even when put on Easy, the AI is down-right ruthless, easily able to not only pass by you, but seemingly able to unload every item on you like they’re recreating Murphy’s death in Robocop. I was shocked at how fast I could go from being in 1st place all the way to near last place during a race. Now it didn’t happen all the time but, when it did, it was slightly frustrating. Not to where I wanted to rage and become R. Lee Ermy with my vocabulary, but just enough to huff. I didn’t notice any rubber-banding issues, something that is prevalent in many racing games, but the AI is competent enough to keep pace and give you a good challenge; even if that challenge means going full Ghandi (Civilization joke, sorry) on you whatever chance they got.
The beta also allowed us to get a taste of the Gear System. So, how it works is that you have a Gear Card with six slots and you fill these slots with special gears that can give you a slight edge in the race; from getting more rings to slightly powerful items. This, I thought, was kinda cool and I can see some combinations leading to either a Speed Racer scenario where it’s impossible for anyone to catch you or one where the person is pretty much invincible on the track to all attacks. There was also vehicle customization which was just OK. Sure, I did enjoy some of the styles on offer but, I dunno, it was just missing something. Now, I’m not asking for Forza levels of customization here, but just a little something more would’ve been nice. Still, the vehicles on offer, consisting of cars and the Extreme Gear (Hover Boards), are nicely designed and the customization options were neat, and I do like how any of the characters can drive any of them. I just would’ve liked to see a bit more, you know? Like, imagine being able to make a Gear look like something off of a Meat Loaf album or a car look like it could belong in the next Death Race (or Carmageddon, if you’re more familiar with that series).
Lastly, the beta allowed us to check out some of the characters on offer, including the likes of Sonic, Tails, Shadow, and Eggman, as well as Joker from Persona 5, who is poised as future DLC, during the last two days for an online Event, which I wasn’t able to participate in due to connection issues. But going by the character selection screen and the various trailers? Apparently, we’re in for upwards of 56 characters! For comparison, Mario Kart World only has 50 characters, so this puts this game on par with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, which also had 56 characters. I do hope all the characters will be balanced come launch but that probably would be pretty difficult. As for what DLC characters the game’s poised to get? Outside of Joker, the game is set to get Hatsune Miku, Ichiban Kasuga (from Yakuza), Steve from Minecraft, Pac-Man, and Spongebob, with characters from TMNT on the way as well. The only bad part is that none of the DLC characters will have any voice lines and that is a bit of a bummer but at the same time? I don’t think it would’ve made a huge difference as, while I was playing, I barely noticed any of the characters in the game being chatterboxes (and this is a series known for cheesy one-liners), so I’m kinda OK with them not having voices. On the other hand, it would’ve been nice to have, maybe, just one voice line when you select them, at the very least. Now, according to an interview with Sega, the reason the DLC characters won’t have voice lines is to make it easier to get the approval to include characters into the game which, I can sorta understand.
Overall, I did enjoy my playtime with the beta and, according to a fan of Sonic I chatted with after the beta, they really enjoyed it as well, with their only issue being the last race of the grand prix, which is just a simple “grand tour” of the three tracks we already raced on. Honestly, I can agree with that as I was kinda hoping for something a bit more substantial for a final race. Still, what I did get to experience is fun and I do look forward to getting my hands on it, though I do hope they fix the AI issues and, maybe, tweak some of the gear so it’s not too easy to be overpowered. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is due out September 25th, 2025 on Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Windows, with a port coming to Nintendo Switch 2 sometime in the future.
