Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, a new racing game featuring Sonic and other famous Sega characters, was announced for a release on September 25, 2025. In an interview with 4gamer, producer Taki Ryuichi and creative director Kohayakawa Masaru talked about the creative process behind the upcoming game. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the Initial D developers would be lending a helping hand to the Sonic developers, but according to Taki and Kohayakawa, they played a significant role in fleshing out the game’s control system and making sure it plays like a “real” racing game.
Kohayakawa notes that the Initial D series has changed a lot in the past 20 years, the game mechanics of the earlier releases being quite challenging for the players. However, in contrast, the brand-new release of Initial D The Arcade has surprisingly intuitive controls — the gameplay getting more polished throughout the years as the devs gain more experience. According to him, all the years of hard work put into perfecting the gameplay of Initial D are the reason why the Initial D and Sonic teams were able to achieve such a smooth collaboration in CrossWorlds. “It was entirely thanks to the Initial D development team that, in Sonic Racing, we were able to implement the gameplay which they’d been honing for years – and it was because of them that we were able to carry on with developing the game,”, Kohayakawa explained.
Taki also added that the Initial D developers’ knowledge of what makes a racing game feel smooth in terms of controls was crucial for their collaboration. He believes that the two developer teams were able to combine both of their main strengths to create a game that maintains Sonic’s catchy and fun vibe while also running like an authentic racing game that feels highly responsive.
Sonic Racing: Cross Worlds is set to release on September 25, 2025, for PlayStation, Xbox, PC (Steam, Epic) and Nintendo Switch.
