Anyone who remembers the Sonic afternoons on the Mega Drive knows the hedgehog has always been synonymous with speed, and at some point he had to return to the tracks. On May 30, 2018, the mystery of the new Sonic racing game, which Sega had been teasing on social media, finally ended: the name is Team Sonic Racing, presented in a short teaser video.
The reveal had an unwanted bit of help. Hours earlier, Walmart put up pages for the game on its online store, with cover, images and details. The logo matched the images Sega had been showing, and the company announced the game officially the same day, for PS4, Xbox One, Switch and PC, planned for late 2018 with the promise of more news and a playable version at E3.
From what leaked and what Sega confirmed, the pitch was different from the usual kart racers: the races are between teams of three drivers, and the team’s result counts more than individual victory. The characters are divided into three types, speed, technique and power, each with its own abilities, and teammates help each other during the race, passing items and gaining a boost by slipstreaming each other. The leaks mentioned 15 playable characters.
Development went to Sumo Digital, the British studio that had already made Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, from 2012, much loved by fans of arcade racing.
The following week, Sega began releasing the first official images and gameplay videos, before taking the game to E3 in June.
What came next
Late 2018 did not hold: the game was delayed so the team would have more time with the online mode, and Team Sonic Racing came out on May 21, 2019. It arrived with 15 characters in five teams of three, 21 tracks and a story mode. Critics were divided, praising the team racing and the track design, but not the story mode or the voice acting. In the UK, it debuted at number one in sales, something a Sonic game had not done since 2008, and passed 3.5 million copies sold by June 2025.
Where to buy
Source: Sega.
Zé Cartucho
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