{"id":52773,"date":"2025-10-08T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=52773"},"modified":"2025-10-07T17:44:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T08:44:34","slug":"sonic-racing-crossworlds-is-dripping-with-segas-secret-sauce-borrowing-from-classics-like-sega-rally-and-outrun-devs-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/sonic-racing-crossworlds-is-dripping-with-segas-secret-sauce-borrowing-from-classics-like-sega-rally-and-outrun-devs-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is dripping with Sega\u2019s \u201csecret sauce,\u201d borrowing from classics like Sega Rally and OutRun, devs say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds<\/strong> is the brand-new entry in Sega\u2019s long running Sonic Racing series. Behind its colorful cast of characters and a lively, party-game-like appearance, lies a fully skill-based racing system<\/a>. This shouldn\u2019t come as much of a surprise if you\u2019re familiar with the fact that the Initial D arcade team was closely involved in development of CrossWorlds, with its controls and gameplay being a culmination of almost 20 years of accumulated know-how<\/a>. However, the mechanics and gameplay itself are not just a simple blend of Sonic Racing and Initial D \u2013 as the devs say, the game is based on Sega\u2019s \u201csecret sauce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, AUTOMATON got the opportunity to have a chat with CrossWorlds creative director Masaru Kohayakawa and former Initial D arcade series producer Kenji Arai, who shared tidbits about the game\u2019s development and told us about some of Sega\u2019s racing classics which CrossWorlds mechanics were built upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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According to Kohayakawa, the way drifting works in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds doesn\u2019t actually come from Initial D. Apparently, the base game design can be traced all the way back to the Sega Rally series. \u201cDriving behavior in the Initial D arcade series was controlled by one programmer who\u2019s been doing that same job ever since Sega Rally. Now, one of their students oversees the behavior programming for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. Also, when creating the driving behavior for CrossWorlds, they actually used Sega Rally\u2019s game design as a base, not the Initial D arcade series,\u201d Kohayakawa explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while Sega Rally helped set the foundation for CrossWorlds, the devs actually used OutRun, Sega\u2019s 1986 classic racer, as a reference for the game. As Kohayakawa notes, the programmers themselves claimed that the \u201csatisfying feeling\u201d of drifting controls in OutRun was a major reference point for CrossWorlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kohayakawa also explained that they technically don\u2019t consider OutRun a part of their division\u2019s \u201cDNA,\u201d as it was developed by the Sega AM2 dev team. However, he presumes elements of OutRun found their way into CrossWorlds because the forementioned Sega Rally programmer\u2019s student actually worked as part of Sega AM plus, a development team which branched out from AM2. Though its background sounds slightly convoluted, the devs suggest that all of these components \u2013 Sega Rally\u2019s foundation, OutRun\u2019s inspiration, Sumo Digital\u2019s intuitive controls and Initial D\u2019s DNA \u2013 were necessary to make Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds what it is now, which is why they were very conscious about making the drift mechanics feel satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Kohayakawa puts it, \u201cSonic CrossWorlds has the secret sauce of Sega. It extracts and combines the essence of not just the arcade Initial D, but also legendary titles like Sega Rally and OutRun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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