After the vague teaser at the end of last year, we now get to see something more tangible of Sonic Racing CrossWorlds, the next Sonic racing game.
At the February 2025 State Of Play, we see what the CrossWorlds is: racers enter a portal, a Travel Ring, that transports them to a new world, mid-race.
Even more interestingly, as revealed on the PlayStation Blog, it’s the lap leader who gets to decide what world they travel to in the next lap, so every lap can be a surprising experience. Unless there’s an option to just stick to the same world every lap, but that would have defeated the whole gimmick the game’s built on.
There’s also a lot of different vehicles this time, as Sonic Racing CrossWorlds allows characters to drive or ride different vehicles this time around ala Mario Kart 8.
You can even ride on the Extreme Gear, i.e. the hoverboard as featured in Sonic Riders. Jet The Hawk, as featured in Sonic Riders, is a playable racer as well.
What’s the most fascinating reveal of Sonic Racing CrossWorlds is that it’s being developed in-house by Sonic Team themselves. The kart racing series was mostly helmed by Sumo Digital throughout the years, up to the previous Team Sonic Racing. Though there are callbacks to Sonic Racing games of the past, vehicles can transform mid-race still, and at least one track is from Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.
Sonic Racing CrossWorlds has no release date yet.