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Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is looking to tear a rift into different locations when it drops later this fall, featuring fun gadgets and crossover characters galore.
Sporting the new CrossWorlds feature, racing tracks in the game will have ring portals that will change the environment completely, basically turning each track into three-in-one in certain situations, making for a daring new take on the genre.
This past week at gamescom, Destructoid sat down with the head of all things Sonic Team, Takashi Iizuka, to discuss the upcoming game's crossover characters and why some of them seem to be mute in-game.
Note: Parts of this interview were edited to avoid repetition and allow for better text clarity.
With all of the different racing games coming out this year, especially with Mario Kart World recently, Kirby Air Riders, even Garfield Kart, How do you feel Sonic Racing Crossworlds is positioned as a racing game to become something that can become its own thing? And what would you say is the main feature or selling point that distinguishes Crossworlds from its competitors?
Takashi Iizuka, Head of Sonic Team (via translator): Sonic, as you know, had a lot of racing games in the past. All those racing games developed by [Sumo Digital] team and also Sonic Riders is also a racing game for Sonic, as well. And when we kicked off this project, the team wanted to make sure that we can develop the most fun Sonic racing game in history as one of the key goals that they had when they kicked off this project. So, to achieve that, [we] decided to work with the Sega Arcade Division, the Arcade Game Division. So, yeah, I think the goal was to really develop the best Sonic racing experience, to create the best Sonic racing game was really the goal. As far as differentiating from the other rating titles that the other companies were making, [that] wasn't actually one of the key things that they were thinking at the start.
So, I wanted to talk about the gadgets and customization features that you included with this game. Obviously, it's very unique in that the different gadgets combine to give yourself different ways of play. That means that not every rider is the same. I wanted to know how painful that was to develop and how the team came about deciding all these different customization options and actually implementing them into the title.
Iizuka: It adds more, I guess, it could change the rules. So, they have to kind of enlarge the scope of the gameplay. It's also another thing that was really difficult for them. Online competition is really one of the key things that kind of drew this idea about the gadgets. And the dev team thinks that one of the good things or the important things about online competition is that the players will be able to kind of bring their own setting, their own uniqueness to their online experience. [Sonic Team] wanted to create a system where they can implement those [unique ideas] or think about their own strategy so that they can compete in the online multiplayer.
CrossWorlds and crossovers are a big feature of this game, which is being shown, and obviously, the season pass on the DLC with Minecraft, Nickelodeon properties, and recently revealed Pac-Man. I wanted to know where this idea of crossovers came about and which IP or teams were looked at, and what the criteria was for that expanse into a bigger game.
Iizuka: [Sonic Team] wanted to make sure that this was like the best Sonic racing title that incorporates all those elements from the past as well. Guest characters was also one important mechanic that they wanted to reintroduce into this game. Because of that, as you already know, they announced guest Sega characters such as Ichiban and Joker that will be available for free every month through updates. And also then, to expand a bit more on that, if players can buy the season pass, they'll be able to also play IPs such as Minecraft and stuff that also includes new tracks as well. It was just kind of mechanical something that they always wanted to implement. When you talk about the criteria, of course, [Sega Team] also looked about to external ideas to see if they wanted to introduce IPs that have uniqueness and also have maybe a fun world. And then kind of put together some ideas of what IPs could maybe fit, what IPs have uniqueness, and then [Sega Team] approached multiple companies. And I guess the companies that we were able to agree upon were the ones that we are going down.
There has been some talk regarding certain DLC characters not having voices in-game currently. Even just playing on the demo, there was an instance of them not having a voice. Is there any reason behind this? And also, will you potentially add updates in the future to add voices if there's enough fan outcry for it?
Iizuka: In this game, there's a lot of interactions between characters, so if we include voices for the guest characters, that will mean a lot of interaction between them and Sega characters. The scope of the review that we'll have to ask the external companies will become very large. We didn't want to make it difficult for the external company. So that's, I guess, the reason why we decided not to be.
So just to clarify, then it was more a sense that it was just more about making sure the characters were in the game and looked good, and voices were an afterthought? Or is it a sense more that it was a gameplay decision, but it might be something that they'll look back at in the future?
Iizuka: Voices are a really important part of the game, but [Sonic Team] really focused on the interactions between the Sonic characters. The dev team really thinks that it's surprising how much interactions they put into the game for the 23 Sonic characters. They really had to focus, put all the effort into Sonic, that may be another reason. And they had to give up on the non-Sonic characters.
When did the team decide to allow players to literally crossover into different stages? And what were some of the difficulties that came with introducing a mechanic that loaded various random or different stages in one singular race?
Iizuka: The CrossWorlds mechanic was actually one of the very first keywords that the dev team was discussing. It was really a mechanic that was in their heads from the start, and that's actually one of the reasons they were able to kick off this project. It was a really difficult project. For a normal racing game, they just have to load one stage and that's it, but for our game, it has to load three stages. That means more data, and each stage has different lighting settings, different shadings and stuff, and additional mechanics. Also, players have to feel good when playing the game, so we have to make sure that players don't feel bad during those three stages. Building a stage that can support all three stages was very difficult.
Regarding the DLC and season pass, you looked at different IPs from a lot of companies. Was there a particular IP that you really wanted to cross over with that you couldn't get? Was there an IP that got away from you, or you couldn't finish or finalize in the end?
Iizuka: Minecraft was an IP that [we] really wanted to include in the game, and we were able to get it. The visuals are very different and unique, and also very popular with kids. That's one we were able to include. [Sega Team] also wanted to introduce characters from non-game media, like Nickelodeon. There were discussions and negotiations, and the IP [Sega Team] was able to agree upon the ones in the game.
The post Iizuka explains how Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds DLC guest characters were chosen and why they don’t have voices appeared first on Destructoid.
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