Sega has maintained a steady output when it comes to post-launch support for kart racer Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, complete with free and paid crossover characters added to the game like Vocaloid pop star Hatsune Miku. In an interview with Famitsu, creative director of the racing game Masaru Kobayakawa has stated that the development team has even more surprises planned for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds in 2026.
Speaking to the Japanese publication as part of its interviews of over 150 developers, Kobayakawa said that there are plans to release new content for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds throughout 2026, and that Sega wants to make sure that this new year is one in which it will “surprise everyone.”
“We released Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds in September 2025. Thanks in part to the over 30 years of racing game know-how we’ve accumulated since Sega Rally, the game has been well-received by players all over the world,” said Kobayakawa (via Google Translate). “We plan to continue providing service throughout the season in 2026, but we’ve also prepared many more amazing surprises than at launch. We’re aiming to make this a year in which we’ll surprise everyone.”
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was released back in September, and has since then seen several updates and DLC releases. In October, Sega had confirmed that the kart racer had sold more than one million copies, and celebrated this announcement with the free release of Persona 5 protagonist Joker as a playable racer. The update also brought with it three new songs—”Take Over”, “Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There”, and “Victory”.
Along with free characters like Joker, Hatsune Miku and the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series’ new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga, Sega has also released characters from Minecraft and SpongeBob SquarePants as part of its paid season pass. A roadmap has confirmed plans for more crossover character releases in the future, with the Pac-Man, Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Avatar: The Last Airbender franchises being represented in these plans. The upcoming free characters, however, have been left as surprises.
While the addition of crossover characters is a great way to boost the number of playable characters in the kart racer, Sonic franchise head Takashi Iizuka had confirmed back in July that these they would not feature any dialogue lines. “There is no dialogue for collaboration characters,” said Iizuka. “Because of the IP, the voice dialogue is limited to the 24 Sonic characters.” While this might make sense for characters from IP that Sega doesn’t own, fans of the kart racer had also spotted that DLC characters that are already part of Sega’s own franchises also don’t seem to have their own voice lines (which extends to the pre-order bonus character Werehog).
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. For more details, check out our review where we gave the kart racer a score of 9 out of 10 thanks to features like gadgets and builds, and the Rivals system.
