Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a crossover racing game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega, released for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2025. A Nintendo Switch 2 edition released digitally on 4 December 2025, and a physical version will follow in early 2026, along with a paid Upgrade Pack being made available to those who own the Switch version of the game.
Gameplay[]
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a kart racing game in which up to twelve racers compete in fast-paced, three-lap races across a variety of circuits. Unlike Team Sonic Racing, the game does not revolve around permanent team-based mechanics during standard races, instead focusing on individual competition similar to other arcade-style kart racers. As with previous Sonic racing titles, drifting plays a central role in gameplay, allowing players to navigate sharp corners efficiently while building speed boosts. Additional bursts of speed can be earned by chaining mid-air tricks after launching off ramps scattered throughout the tracks.
Rings once again function as a core gameplay element, increasing a racer's top speed while carried. However, colliding with walls, hazards, or other racers causes players to lose rings, reducing their overall performance. Item capsules appear along the course and grant a variety of offensive and defensive tools, which can be used either to gain an advantage or disrupt opposing racers.
NiGHTS racing on their personal machine, the Dream Sleeper.
Players can select between two main vehicle styles: traditional race cars and Extreme Gear hoverboards. Standard cars dynamically transform into boats or aircraft at specific sections of a race, depending on the terrain, while Extreme Gear behaves similarly to its appearance in the Sonic Riders series. Unlike earlier Sonic racing games, characters are no longer locked to specific vehicles; instead, each character has their own set of stats that directly influence how vehicles perform. Vehicles themselves are categorized into classes—Speed, Acceleration, Power, and Handling—while Extreme Gear uses a unique Boost-focused classification.
A wide selection of vehicles is available, with dozens unlockable through gameplay. Players can also mix and match unlocked parts to create custom vehicles tailored to their preferred playstyle. Progression is tied to earning Donpa Tickets, which are awarded for completing races and optional challenge objectives. These tickets can be spent on new vehicle parts, cosmetic customization options such as paint jobs and decals, retrying races during a Grand Prix, or gifting them to characters to increase friendship levels and unlock additional rewards.
Before entering a race, players can equip passive upgrades known as gadgets. These gadgets grant various advantages, such as pulling in distant rings, improving trick performance, or influencing item selection. As players progress, additional gadget slots are unlocked, allowing for deeper customization, though some more powerful gadgets require multiple slots to be equipped.
The game features a large selection of tracks organized into multiple Grand Prix cups, many of which are inspired by locations from across the Sonic series. A key mechanic introduced in CrossWorlds is the use of Travel Rings. After the first lap, the leading racer selects between two portals that transport all racers to an alternate dimension known as a CrossWorld, where the second lap takes place. Each CrossWorld introduces unique visual themes and gameplay modifiers before the race returns to the original track for the final lap. During these segments, temporary “frenzy” effects may activate, altering the course with dynamic elements such as moving boost panels. Track layouts can also change during the final lap, introducing new hazards or opening additional shortcuts.
Several race modes are available, including Grand Prix, Time Trial, and Race Park. Grand Prix mode consists of a sequence of races where players aim to achieve the highest overall placement score, while contending with a designated rival racer who exhibits more aggressive behavior and actively targets the player. Defeating rivals yields extra rewards and character interactions. Time Trial mode challenges players to set their best lap times, unlocking additional music tracks that can be assigned as background music during races. Race Park reintroduces team-based mechanics, where players work together to complete specific objectives, such as collecting rings or landing item hits, in order to earn points and rewards.
The game supports both local and online multiplayer, including cross-platform play for up to twelve players. Periodic online events are also held, offering limited-time challenges and exclusive rewards through competitive play.
NiGHTS Series[]
NiGHTS announcement.
NiGHTS personal machine, the Dream Sleeper.
With more than 50 playable racers, Sonic CrossWorlds features the biggest roster in a Sonic Racing game, with more characters yet to be revealed. When the game was released, NiGHTS was in the back cover of the game's box alongside Ichiban Kasuga from Yakuza and Joker from Persona 5, characters who were already confirmed to be coming later, after the game's launch as free downloadable characters, making NiGHTS the only playable character to be confirmed in such way. Despite that, no mentions of NiGHTS were made by Sega until November 11th, when a trailer for the character was released, revealing that NiGHTS would be coming on December 2025 for free. NiGHTS officialy made their debut in the game on December 24th, 2025.
NiGHTS is a speed type in the game, which means they have a high Speed stat, that gives their vehicle a higher top speed, average Handling and Power, but low Acceleration and Boost. NiGHTS comes with a personal machine called Dream Sleeper, which is a new Extreme Gear that heavily takes inspiration from NiGHTS's personal Extreme Gear from the Sonic Riders series, the Night Sky.
NiGHTS lobby emotes.
The game also features lobby emotes, which are expressions for the player to use to react during gameplay. When NiGHTS was announced, it was revealed they'd also come with lobby emotes based on classic renders and concept arts of them.
Before NiGHTS was revealed as a playable racer though, they were already confirmed to be making a cameo, as the NiGHTS Hotel from Radical Highway once again appears in the circuits based on the level, now sporting a holographic projection of NiGHTS' head on its roof.
NiGHTS Festival[]
Rewards the player could get at the limited NiGHTS Festival.
Festivals is a gameplay feature in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. They are special limited-time multiplayer events where players earn Festival Points to claim unique rewards. During a Festival, racers are split into teams and compete under special rules; as players accumulate Festival Points they unlock cosmetic items (decals, vehicle horns, and titles).[1]
A NiGHTS-themed started at December 25th, 2025 and ended at December 28th, 2025. It was the sixth post-launch festival, released as part of NiGHTS being added to the game. The festival would mostly feature NiGHTS-themed cosmetics as rewards, including stickers for NiGHTS, Reala, Nightopian and a Wizeman palm.
Trivia[]
- This game marks NiGHTS's first playable appearance in 13 years. Before this, the last time NiGHTS was playable was in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, another racing game.
- This game is also the first time the Journey of Dreams visitors are referenced instead of the NiGHTS into Dreams ones, with Will and Helen making a small cameo appearance in the image displayed when checking NiGHTS songs and themes.[2] This marks Will and Helen first appearance since Journey of Dreams, released 18 years ago.