I thought I wouldn't be able to try Sonic Racing Crossworlds...but it happened
August 29, 2025
The introductory backstory
Well...I'm surprised. There were two reasons on why I believed that I wouldn't be able to actually try out the big brand new Sonic Racing Crossworlds Open Network Test - reasons that were believable enough to me to already declare ahead of time it probably wouldn't go well.
The first one was a particular detail on the same post or tweet where the Open Network Test was announced to be coming for all platforms: Some countries wouldn't be able to participate in it...and the one where I live was the first one listed there.
And the second one? My humble GPU has been a very welcome upgrade after many years of using a 2010s laptop - laptop which I still appreciate despite that AND is still kicking, but in any case, the GPU [AMD Radeon HD 6570] was absolutely nowehere near the intended minimum requirements of the game.
Alongside a humble i5-3470 [not bad if carried by a modern GPU, but uhh], 8GB of RAM and a normal Hard Drive, my expectations for this Unreal Engine 5 game to work on my PC were...not too high. Even when I had heard it was well optimized, I assumed it would still be a hard sell when some UE4 games kick and scream just to run at 60fps on my PC [Tekken 7, Guilty Gear Strive], let alone a UE5 game with how many call outs about poor optimization were out there.
...That is why I'm writing this here in the first place. Despite that previous statement about my country not being eligible AND being an UE5 game, I actually could play it at home on my own PC.
Steam had let me enter the playtest, so I assumed that the game would do the lockout during boot, but then someone told me that they also were in the blocked country list yet could play normally, so I downloaded the game...and they were right. No message of being inelegible, no warning messages, nothing.
Or well, there WAS one warning message from the engine itself recommending a newer driver for my GPU, but I already got the newest driver compatible with my GPU...which is from around 2014 IIRC, so it makes sense the warning was there.
But to my absolute surprise, the game booted. The game was loading fine and let me enter the menu. THE GAME HAD ALREADY SET MOSTLY EVERYTHING TO LOW INSTEAD OF STARTING IN THE HIGHEST GRAPHICS OPTION.
After giving the options menu a visit [only FXAA and V-Sync were enabled, so begone with them - also lowered the resolution to 720x480], I entered the game, and to my surprise, it worked without any visual issues...although I had to get out of the race to switch from 60fps to 30fps since I believed the hype too much into thinking it would actually run at that much FPS lmao
So yeah, the game was somehow playable on my not very modern GPU [it doesn't have support for DX12, which is one big reason why I believed it wouldn't work], although having some noticeable stutters at times [always visually, but sometimes it also caused the audio to stop at moments] and slowdown on the Rainbow Garden track, but that aside, it was all perfectly playable.
If there's something that the stutters stopped me from trying more than once though would be the online mode - I can't tell if they are caused by the engine having a fit with the GPU or if its actually by my hard drive [since one of the times where the stutters happened consistently was when the crossworlds were loading in] but I do think that it was what got me kicked out some seconds after starting my first online race at Mystic Forest.
I could see that the game was NOT trying to resync me up to the current status, rather behaving as if it were stuttering pausing and unpausing offline...which is the problem there - there's no way my game stuttering while keeping me in place while the other racers are actually still moving makes sense to the game, so I got booted with error code 1-6-0 [which I couldn't find anything of yet when I wrote this].
But at least I could see the first three tracks in action, as well the cool final race setup that rather than put you through three normal races with tracks that swap in crossworlds, it instead has you drive through all three tracks in one single race. Certainly adds some cool variety to the final challenge while resourcefully reusing those previous tracks.
Time to actually talk A LOT about what I tried
On the note of the game itself, I have only unlocked two gadget slots, so I haven't got my hands deep into the art of crafting stupid builds, but I did think the driving was pretty nice and looked pretty fast in Sonic Speed with the dynamic camera.
I played with the default Sonic car, which meant default high speed but lower handling, and while at first at time I struggled with doing some turns from a bad angle due to that low handling, I could compensate with either using the brake [which for the record, I later heard that you can also just let go of accel while drifting for a Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing style for sharp corner taking, something I'm familiar with] or just making sure to take a good line so that I could make the turn without dropping my speed.
In the first visit I gave to the GP, I also noticed that the [written in a big glowing sign] RIVAL often tried to stay ahead on the pack, giving me a feeling of a threat and yet giving me the thrill of leaving them behind and taking first place. Its something that even the Mario Kart games do, but isn't as much of a pointed out detail by Mario Kart players compared to some other games like F-Zero and Ring Racers where people mention that feature more vocally [although at least in F-Zero games you can eliminate them out of a race lol].
If there's something I could mention on the note of rivals and racing, is that I did experience on the Water Palace race this thing that some would call "getting karted".
Trying to overtake near the end of the final lap, King Boom Boo shows up and takes my first place away, then I failed to drift at the right angle and ate a wall. Fifth place.
Although with how I've heard that the items are nowhere near as chaotic as they were in the first beta test, I can also believe that, as in the other three races I could either clutch up near the end through my own items either by attacking or defending, or could take a frontrun with good driving to the point that King Boom Boo would come from the grave where I...I mean, Knuckles the Echidna buried it back when I played Sonic Adventure 2 just to be a prick.
And yet, it didn't hurt me for long enough that I lost that lead in the final section of the final race, taking yet another first place home. Felt like my victory was earned because even if I had got blue shell'd, I had earned that much distance and keep up the pace to not have it ruin the race [again].
But the real highlight for me? Well, since I couldn't play online reliably and the offline mode only had three tracks available, I decided to go for the one thing that I noticed was also open after completing the GP.
We're attacking that time tonight
Yep, around half an hour of my one hour of playtime was spent in Time Attack trying to hone my skills at E-Stadium.
I went for the car that Shadow uses, and as I only had three slots, tried with the 130 ring cap + faster drift charge lv1 gadgets. Took me some tries to actually get the time down enough for an A-Rank, as I learned about some lines to take, some corners to cut while foregoing for Rings [as long as I either made up for them on another straight OR I was already maxed out on rings] and then going for the strat of picking up a wisp capsule every lap to cut the off-road turn at the end.
By the time I had got the first A-Rank, I was trying way more times since it was now me against my own ghost, figuring out what corners I could improve at, at what points I could let go of the drift earlier to get the boost faster and gain a lead, and trying to get a wisp capsule every lap succesfully for the final cut.
My final result, at least one I was satisfied with knowing that I didn't have more slots or gadgets at hand to actually try to boost the machine further in stats or abilities [which is how I assume I could actually try for the S-Rank when its SECONDS away from my personal best at the time of writing this].
Anything else to add?
Uhhh...I guess not for now, at least not until I end up trying more of it or I somehow get to try the game on a PC with beefier stats in order to try the online.
If you for whatever reason took your time to read all of this, then...well...thanks for reading :]
This text to html website definitely happens to be handy for when I want to write as much as this [over 1.3k words lmao] since I don't have to tag every single paragraph. But I think I've written enough for now with my first impressions. The music is actually quite nice to listen as well - which is a pleasant surprise knowing how flat the music initially sounded in some of the early first previews of the game.
What I had been thinking to write about recently was a review of Osu Tatakae Ouendan 2 with how I had gone through quite a good chunk of it [although I'll probably add an entry for it in the Memory Card], there was no way I could let the chance to yap about Sonic Racing Crossworlds slip and slide by [Slip...and slide...heh, the moment I thought about it I couldn't avoid throwing that song in] when I actually could try it out on my own despite my huge doubts about that being possible to do tonight.
Maybe another day when I have more time with it [and access to more content than just three tracks] I could end up going more in-depth with my exploration of it.
And for the record, I think that Crossworlds and Ring Racers can coexist with their own styles, although that's also likely because I'm quite flexible with my kart racing tastes and can savor different types of insanity and using items to krakaboomzlanga my rivals into oblivion.
But that's it for now. Thanks for reading [once again], and whatever you're doing or wherever you're at, take care.
P.S.:
