{"id":52509,"date":"2025-10-01T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=52509"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:07:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T07:07:30","slug":"sonic-racing-crossworldss-cross-play-was-incredibly-difficult-and-time-consuming-to-pull-off-but-the-devs-considered-it-a-must-for-fair-matchmaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/sonic-racing-crossworldss-cross-play-was-incredibly-difficult-and-time-consuming-to-pull-off-but-the-devs-considered-it-a-must-for-fair-matchmaking\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds\u2019s cross-play was incredibly difficult and time-consuming to pull off, but the devs considered it a must for fair matchmaking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>After more than 6 years since the last game in the Sonic Racing Series, SEGA\u2019s <strong>Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds<\/strong> finally released on September 25, to generally positive reviews and a remarkably high <a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2486820\/Sonic_Racing_CrossWorlds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a> rating. In a recent interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/dengekionline.com\/article\/202509\/53974\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dengeki Online<\/a>, Sonic series producer Takashi Iizuka and CrossWorlds producer Ryuichi Taki talked about why they insisted on implementing cross-play in the game, despite the impact the decision had on development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds - Launch Trailer\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lg591kVaGlc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Sonic series has always been pushing for multi-platform support,\u201d says Iizuka. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been providing players with playable environments across platforms like PC and Switch, even when it comes to our regular action games. But implementing cross-play was leagues more difficult.\u201d Multiple Sonic racing games have come out over the years, and despite releasing games like Team Sonic Racing (2019) on all major platforms, the team hadn\u2019t been successful with implementing cross-play so far. However, Iizuka explains that teaming up with <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/sonic-racing-crossworlds-controls-are-based-on-20-years-of-experience-making-initial-d-arcade-games-devs-say\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SEGA\u2019s arcade division<\/a> and incorporating their network technology know-how into the game was crucial for achieving cross-play for CrossWorlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"432\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250930-525090001.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250930-525090001.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250930-525090001-380x214.jpg 380w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While the team aspired to implement cross-play so all Sonic players across the globe could get together regardless of the platform they\u2019re using, Taki notes that another crucial factor in making the decision was fair matchmaking. Online multiplayer games tend to suffer from matchmaking issues when there\u2019s not a lot of players in-game. Less experienced players could end up matched up with highly-skilled ones, making the game unfair and taking away from the fun. On the other hand, with cross-play, the pool of available players largely expands, allowing for fairer competition among players, Taki suggest. \u201cIf you want to secure a sufficient number of players [that are on a similar level], breaking down the walls between platforms undoubtedly helps. That\u2019s also one of the benefits we saw in cross-play, and the decision to implement it was made quite early on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"432\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250930-525090002.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52513\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250930-525090002.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250930-525090002-380x214.jpg 380w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With cross-play in the picture, Taki admits that dealing with performance issues between different hardware was probably the most challenging part of development. The Sonic Team had to make sure to provide the same experience and a fair environment to all players while also trying to maintain the visual quality. According to Taki, ports for each of the platform were fine-tuned individually to match the specs, and \u201cit was an incredibly down-to-earth process that took an insanely long time to complete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHowever, if you, for example, play CrossWorlds on Xbox and PlayStation at the same time, you probably won\u2019t notice the difference. And that level of refinement was a culmination of our know-how and our sincere approach to each of the platforms,\u201d he added. Due to this process, CrossWorlds had the longest development cycle out of all the franchise\u2019s racing games so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is out now on PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2486820\/Sonic_Racing_CrossWorlds\/\">Steam<\/a>), PS5\/PS4, Xbox Series X\u2758S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has cross-play for all of the platforms it&#8217;s available on &#8211; but getting there wasn&#8217;t as easy as one might think. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":52511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-52509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds\u2019s cross-play was incredibly difficult and time-consuming to pull off, but the devs considered it a must for fair matchmaking - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has cross-play for all of the platforms it&#039;s available on - but getting there wasn&#039;t as easy as one might think.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/sonic-racing-crossworldss-cross-play-was-incredibly-difficult-and-time-consuming-to-pull-off-but-the-devs-considered-it-a-must-for-fair-matchmaking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds\u2019s cross-play was incredibly difficult and time-consuming to pull off, but the devs considered it a must for fair matchmaking - 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