Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a kart racing game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega, released on September 25, 2025 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. A Nintendo Switch 2 version followed digitally on December 4, 2025 and physically on March 26, 2026. It follows Team Sonic Racing (2019) in Sega's line of Sonic kart racers.
The game is built around its CrossWorld mechanic. At the end of the first lap the leading racer chooses between two Travel Rings, portals that pull the entire field into an alternate location for the second lap before returning everyone to the original course for the third. Random "frenzy" modifiers can fire during those middle segments, adding moving boost gates and other effects. Players race either in transforming vehicles that shift between car, boat and plane forms depending on terrain, or on Extreme Gear hoverboards carried over from the Sonic Riders series. Drifting through corners and landing mid-air tricks builds boost.
CrossWorlds launched with 24 playable characters and 24 tracks spread across eight Grand Prix events, alongside 45 vehicles that can be rebuilt from interchangeable parts and more than 70 gadgets granting passive advantages. Development began at Sonic Team in 2022, with support from developers who had worked on the Initial D arcade games. Producer Ryuichi Taki has credited the Travel Ring idea partly to the Sonic film series and partly to childhood memories of emerging from tunnels into changed landscapes.
The roster expanded sharply after release. Free monthly updates added thirteen Sonic and Sega characters during the first year, while a premium season pass covered fifteen guest characters across six waves. Guests have included Hatsune Miku, Persona 5's Joker, Pac-Man, Mega Man, SpongeBob SquarePants, Minecraft and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion content announced for a second year. By July 2026 the playable roster had reached 52.
Reviews were strong, with Metacritic aggregates ranging from 76 on Nintendo Switch to 88 on Xbox Series X|S, and critics frequently positioned the game as a traditional counterpart to Mario Kart World's open-world approach. Common criticisms concerned grind-heavy progression and the absence of voice acting for DLC characters. The game passed one million copies by October 2025, below Sega's internal projections.