While Sega has previously confirmed that its upcoming kart racer Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will feature quite a few crossover characters in the form of post-launch DLC, the company has now also confirmed that these crossover characters will not have voice lines. In an interview with Japanese publication Famitsu (via The Gamer), Sonic franchise head Takashi Iizuka has confirmed the lack of dialogues for DLC characters.
“There is no dialogue for collaboration characters,” said Iizuka. “Because of the IP, the voice dialogue is limited to the 24 Sonic characters.” However, fans have also since noticed through a trailer released by Sega that DLC characters that already fall under the Sega will also not feature voice lines. This includes pre-order bonus character Werehog, who was completely silent throughout the clip showcased by Sega.
For context, Werehog is the werewolf-styled form that Sonic would take on in the game Sonic Unleashed. At the time, the Werehog was voiced by Sonic’s voice actor Jason Griffith. Since then, Roger Craig Smith has taken over as the voice of Sonic. When he was asked if he would also be voicing Werehog, he said that “I would love to”, but this ended up not happening.
Fans have begun voicing their displeasure about this, with one social media user saying that “this is just unacceptable for a 70 dollar game”.
Despite the lack of dialogues for these DLC characters, some of the ones announced by Sega have been quite impressive. Alongside crossover characters from Sega’s own franchises, like Ichiban Kasuga from Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Joker from Persona 5, the game will also be bringing in characters from outside of Sega, including vocaloid pop star Hatsune Miku, and even SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick.
Sega had previously confirmed that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will feature more than 23 racers as part of its roster at launch, which will also “continue to grow” thanks to post-launch DLC. As for its race tracks, the game will feature several from past Sonic titles, including Metal Harbor from Sonic Adventure 2.
“In addition to the new locations, we also designed tracks using themes from past titles to create new ones based on familiar places,” said Iizuka back in June. “I am personally excited about the track based on Metal Harbor since I worked on Sonic Adventure 2. The team did an amazing job bringing Metal Harbor to life with a realistic portrayal that was impossible to accomplish back when the original stage was created.”
More recently, Sega had released a trailer that showcased some of the customisation options that players will have for their karts. According to the company, the title will feature more than 70,000 unique combinations of vehicle parts that players can make use of. The trailer also showcased some of the gadgets that players will be able to use over the course of a race. For more details about the design behind these gadgets, check out how the developers decided to take out the more “stressful” ones.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on September 25.