Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Nintendo Switch 2 Edition & Season Pass impressions

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the Switch 2 version of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. The Switch 2 launch has been pretty weird for third parties, making Switch 2 versions take frustratingly longer than other console counterparts. Every other version of CrossWorlds came out back in September, while this one came out in December of the same year, with a physical version coming next year. If you’re in the future, that doesn’t really matter anymore, but I think the context is worth noting as a lot of work clearly went into this port to get it running smooth as butter.

If you want a full review of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds you can read that using the link above, as this article will mostly focus on the quality of the Switch 2 Edition. If you want my opinion, I heartily agree with Adam; the game’s a blast and exactly what I want out of a kart racer: high speed, chaotic racing that still leans further into skill than luck. If you read my review of Mario Kart World, while I enjoyed it for what it is, I found it didn’t exactly give me what I look for in a kart racer. Its focus on racing through open world Connections instead of the more bespoke race tracks detracted from the main draw. I bring up this comparison because I think CrossWorlds accomplishes what Mario Kart World set out to do, but better. Every three lap race feels different and fresh, with the first lap being pretty standard, the second taking place on an entirely different track, and the third being a remix of the first lap. It’s a ton of fun, and the Switch 2 version makes it all the more convenient with docked, portable, online, or local wireless play.

Playing solo or in two player on the same system, you’re getting a solid 60 frames per second at 1080p in portable mode or 1440p docked. Add in one or two more players, however, and you’ll be bumped down to the Switch 1’s 30 fps cap, which the Switch 2 can still struggle to hold steady with dips down to 19/20 fps. It’s a shame as I’d love to break this out at gatherings for some bonkers 4 player action. It’s not unplayable and still feels responsive, but it’s certainly hard to look at.

I still spend most of my time in single player though, particularly in portable mode, which looks and feels great. The only noticeable downgrade in portable mode is the resolution, though I’m not talking about that mode’s 1080p target. The game seems to utilize dynamic resolution, and 99% of the time it’s not noticeable in the slightest. When you approach a CrossWorld Ring, however, the screen will suddenly get pretty blurry as the next lap loads in. This is always on a straightaway so there’s not much going on other than maybe drafting behind an opponent or snaking for drift boosts. It shouldn’t impact gameplay too much, but I think it’s still worth mentioning.

Also worth mentioning is the battery life; CrossWorlds will drain the Switch 2’s battery pretty dang quickly, similar to other AAA Switch 2 games. From 86% (I keep the setting to stop the battery from charging to 100% on) down to 50% takes about an hour, giving you around 2 hours of playtime. That’s fairly standard for modern portable game consoles, but I still find it generally disappointing even if it’s not the game’s fault here.

After putting the base game through its paces, I got access to the Deluxe Edition including the season pass. The Deluxe Edition includes three characters from Sonic Prime (Nine, Rusty Rose, and Knuckles the Dread), while the season pass so far includes the Minecraft and SpongeBob SquarePants packs. There’s four more packs releasing over the course of 2026, including MegaMan, PAC-MAN, TMNT, and Avatar (not the blue people one). Each pack comes with a few characters, a vehicle, a new track, 6 emotes per character, additional music, and more. It’s all pretty neat, and there have been a few additional characters released for free, like Ichiban from Like a Dragon, Joker from Persona 5, and Hatsune Miku from your Digital Audio Workstation with more coming down the line including Tangle, Whisper, and NiGHTS.

The new tracks are pretty cool, providing some different visual styles with the excellent track designs. Bikini Bottom looks pretty simple based on the map, but it goes through some interesting phases like having to navigate around a big robot presumably controlled by Plankton, bounce on some jellyfish, or contend with rocks and fire shooting out of a volcano. The track has a lot of straightaways, which makes it great for Speed characters and vehicles, which is what I prefer. Meanwhile, Minecraft’s cleverly titled Minecraft World can feel like multiple CrossWorlds in and of itself. You start off in grassy plains I know are called the Overworld thanks to my little brother, then enter a portal to reach the hellish Nether. It and Bikini Bottom feel pretty similar in structure and hazards, lots of straightaways and fire respectively, so hopefully future tracks give us a bit more variety. I enjoy both tracks, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think they really compliment each other as part of one CrossWorld Cup. We’ll see if the PAC-MAN course keeps this design trend going.

Now, it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room: the characters. On paper, it’s pretty cool to have all these Sonic characters burning rubber alongside SpongeBob and Steve, but the added characters come with a pretty big asterisk in that they’re not voiced. I had assumed this just meant they didn’t have any Rival dialogue in the Grand Prix mode, and that’s disappointing but understandable given all the possible combinations, but in actuality these characters have no voice acting whatsoever. It’s incredibly weird to be playing as a cartoon character like Patrick who’s known for being loud and dumb, and hear absolutely nothing from him. It makes me not want to play as these characters and just stick with the main roster (specifically Blaze the Cat because she’s cool).

Speaking of characters, I find it very strange that there is exactly one Boost-type character in the game, and that’s Hatsune Miku. I really like playing as her, but her lack of Rival interactions still makes me stick with Blaze in the Grand Prix. It’s also strange that Extreme Gear is only available as Boost-type vehicles. In the future I’d like to see a bit more mixing and matching of character and vehicle types, because Extreme Gear is neat but the Speed-type cars just feel better to me.

Overall, this is a great port but I could take or leave the Season Pass so far. The characters are nice additions, but their lack of voice acting somewhat kills their appeal, and while the tracks are both great in a vacuum together they feel way too similar. I’m glad I waited to play the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and I’ll be keeping an eye on future DLC simply because the game is a blast and fits the portable form factor perfectly.

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