Sonic Team Studio Head Takashi Iizuka's Bid to Appeal to Japanese and Global Audiences Through Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

As the latest exciting addition to the Sonic gaming franchise, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds surprised fans worldwide with the inclusion of Miku Hatsune, Like a Dragon's Ichiban Kasuga, Persona 5's Joker, as well as Minecraft's Steve, Alex, and Creeper. A total of twenty-three playable characters will be available at launch, and possibly an even larger roster will be added as post-release updates. The external property characters will be made available through DLCs, so there'll likely be even more interesting interactions and collaborations.

During a hands-on preview at Summer Game Fest Play Days, I had the chance to explore the depth of customization options for everything from the horn, decals, and even the vehicle's aura. The game is still in development and is set to launch September 25, 2025. As an avid player of kart games, CrossWorlds throws in the ability to choose a different track by a mechanic called Travel Rings. Despite being in first place, I noticed the power ups weren't balanced yet as my character was given the same boosts as everyone else. There's plenty of time for that to be adjusted, along with the incorporation of other feedback from play testers. The graphics were stunning, the game was easy to pick up, and the music matched the energy as I crashed, drifted, and received taunts from the other characters.

While at Play Days, I spoke with the Head of Studio, Takashi Iizuka on the reception of Sonic as a franchise in Japan, his favorite character to play as, and the difficulty of presenting CrossWorlds to different IP rights holders. Although the Sonic movies have each been a hit worldwide, the series doesn't perform as strongly in Japan. According to Box Office Mojo, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 only grossed about $1.5M during its run in its country of origin.

“For a long time, we've seen Sonic be very, very popular outside of Japan versus inside of Japan,” said Iizuka. “For CrossWorlds specifically, we're getting into targeting Japanese players and making sure there's something in it for them. The guest characters and the partners we're collaborating with, such as the inclusion of Miku, Kasuga, and Joker, are all very popular characters inside of Japan.” Iizuka hopes for Japanese players to enjoy the Sonic characters alongside the other characters that they love.

Surprisingly—or perhaps unsurprisingly—Minecraft was the IP that the development team chased after. “Minecraft is the big one because it's an IP that we went out directly and wanted. It's big in the West, but it's also very big in Japan even among adults. That was a way that we could present something to get that Japanese audience to look at our game and get excited to purchase.”

Crossworlds began development sometime around two to three years ago, and the Sonic Team wanted to focus on building out the base game first. “We didn't really talk with anyone until we were confident that we had a solid game. Once we got to that step, we were confident to present to the IP rights holders and explain how their character could be integrated into the content.”

Once they received approval, the characters would be added into the game. However, there were some third-party partners that felt their characters and franchises weren't a fit for CrossWorlds. Iizuka didn't go into detail on who or which characters these were, but he signaled that not everyone they presented to came onboard.

Turning to CrossWorlds' position after Sonic X Shadow Generations, I was curious to see what kind of direction Iizuka and Sonic Team wanted to go forward with. Sonic X Shadow Generations integrated mechanics and story elements from past Sonic games, while being in the fortunate position of aligning with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The development team tweaked Shadow's design in Generations to align with the movie version, but his design in CrossWorlds will remain consistent with his game version.

“Because last year Sonic X Shadow Generations came out as movie three was releasing, we wanted to do a little fun collaboration. But since we don't have a movie coming out this year, we're keeping Shadow as how we usually portray him.”

Whether its comics, movies, the TV show, or the games, Iizuka reiterates the Sonic Team's dedication to entertaining fans through all kinds of media.

“Movie number four did get announced, and we'd like to continue expanding on these other forms of media and entertainment where people can enjoy the character. We have several genres: Sonic X Shadow Generations would be our 3D action platform game, Sonic Superstars is the 2D side scrolling action game, and CrossWorlds is within the racing genre. We're taking the characters and integrating the best characteristics of that character and applying it to game genres moving forward.”

To wrap up the conversation, I asked Iizuka who he likes to play as in CrossWorlds. “Of all the characters, I'm a Shadow oshi. I put in a lot of effort into the design of Shadow's car to be Shadow-like and cool. When you're playing the game, one of the elements that we put into CrossWorlds is character dialogue. As you're racing, or if you have rivals, you get a lot of character communication, but Shadow doesn't talk so much.”

Conveniently, I did pick Shadow during my playtest, and I tried to bump and attack as many characters as I could to get them to react. I noticed how he will call out other characters by name, but he'll only call Sonic as the “Blue Hedgehog.”

“A lot of the other characters have some good lines in there. Even if you're not picking Shadow, you'll get a richer sense of the characterization through their communication depending on who you choose to play as.”