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Releasing in approximately 3 weeks on 25th September, Sonic Racing Crossworlds is a kart racing multiplayer title where Sonic characters, Sega characters, as well as characters from series such as Minecraft and Spongebob (as season pass DLC) race through tracks that change lap by lap. The player in the lead at the end of each lap decides between two portal locations, leading players to the chosen area for their next lap. The final lap of each Grand Prix combines the standard lap layouts for each prior race into one combination track.
This past weekend an open beta test for the game was held, and as such I was able to check out some of the accessibility settings found in the game ahead of its official release.
At its most basic, Sonic Racing Crossworlds is going to feel familiar to anyone who has played kart racers like Mario Kart World or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Character and vehicle pairs impact stats like acceleration and handling, you start each race by holding the accelerate button around the time the 2 is starting to appear in the pre race countdown for a precisely timed boost, boxes grant randomised items that you can hold two of at a time in reserve, vehicles transform when in the air or on the water, and drifting around corners can provide boosts. There’s a few unique specifics, mainly things like being able to charge a drift boost while driving in a straight line when in boat form, but fundamentally the basics here feel very much like they’re following the Mario Kart mould. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, for folks who don’t own Nintendo platforms or who have non-Nintendo playing friends, this is basically a multiplatform crossplay title in the same general genre.
While the gimmick of going through portals to different locations between laps is pretty cool conceptually, in practice do I want to temper expectations. This isn’t an experience comparable to something like the opening sequence of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, here there’s a solid few seconds between location selection and portal hopping, giving it a fundamentally different feel to the current standard bearer in games where you hop between portals to different settings at rapid speed.
While it may seem unfair to describe a new release primarily in terms of how it compares to a competing gere title like Mario Kart, I think doing so makes sense in the context of this accessibility review, as Sonic Racing Crossworlds follows a very similar approach to accessibility as the more recent Mario Kart titles.
Much like Mario Kart’s Switch and Switch 2 entries Crossworlds supports Steering Assist mode, which is turned on by default in the open beta the same way that it’s on by default in Nintendo’s Karting series. While Mario Kart places a blinking light on the back of your car on an ariel to let you know that steering assist is active, Crossworlds has no similar visual indicator for steering assist. The steering assist mode is strong enough to feel easily if you’re familiar with its Mario Kart implementation.
Sonic Racing Crossworlds also features Auto Accellerate, useful for players who struggle with constantly holding a button down, but does not support Auto Item Use as recently seen in Mario Kart World. Crossworlds does however support Trick Assist, allowing your character to automatically do tricks when in midair for a boost upon landing, usually controlled with flicks of the left analogue stick. Players can also opt to use gyro motions to control these tricks.
Beyond these assist options, Crossworlds allows players to alter vibration, change their accelerate button to options such as the trigger or bumper buttons, invert their flight controls, and adjust their steering sensitivity. On screen displays can also be toggled off if they’re likely to be overwhelming to the player.
Beyond the settings menu, there’s a few things that are of note in the gameplay from an accessibility perspective.
During specific fast boost animations, particularly those used to launch the player into the air, dramatic and colourful speed line effects will appear at the edges of the screen, moving unpredictably. These are paired with heavy use of motion blur around areas of the screen. In combination some players may find these either visually overstimulating, or to be contributors to motion sickness.
Spark effects at the back of the vehicle during drifts are also more intense than in a game like Mario Kart, and may also contribute to visual overstimulation.
Screen Shake effects are used at times, such as when landing on the ground from a particularly large jump. There is no option to disable these screen shake effects.
Gates that change your vehicle into a different traversal form are colour coded, but are also signified by icons denoting the vehicle you’re going to transform into.
Red coins can be differentiated from gold coins by a star symbol inside of them.
While not immediately clear, blue and red boost pads also do have different visual patterns to differentiate them, though this is hard to notice at speed.
There are some levels with quite stark differences in their levels of colour and saturation. Some of these levels are likely to be easier to see than others for players with vision impairments.
The game’s variation in art styles between levels and worlds also means that Crossworlds features less consistency in visual cues than other competing kart racers, and may be more mentally taxing to keep up with on the fly for players with cognitive disabilities.
Overall I’m fairly happy with the motor control focused accessibility options found in Sonic Racing Crossworlds, even if the game is somewhat lacking in ways to reduce problem visual effects. The core design is going to be a little harder for some players to engage with, but that’s somewhat unavoidable in the context of what this game seems to be aiming for.
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