Sumo Digital Explains Why Team Sonic Racing Doesn't Include Other Sega Characters

Correction: "... That was very important for *Sega."

I'm not still bitter that Phantasy Star never got representation in the Sega Superstars franchise or anything, honest.

Enjoying the game so far, I do miss the other Sega franchises. While I do appreciate an attempt at cohesiveness, but I don’t think it was worth losing the variety that the other franchises brought.

Ahh, if there is tailored character dialogue we need to hear "Is that all you've got?" "No, but thanks for asking."

Yeah, the team mechanics and dialogue wouldn’t have worked with different franchises. Hopefully next time it’ll be that, but for this game it’s fine.

This seems like such a cop out. Why not include them as unlockables for multiplayer and they could still have the sonic only roster for adventure mode. This game seems better than expected but still too limited an offering to consider it.

Seems like a step backwards to me.

How many people complain about the story of a racing game?

Yeah makes sense. Especially when the roster is smaller than not only the previous two SEGA racing games, but also smaller than all the Sonic Riders games as well. Yeah, I completely understand.

Sonic Riders had Sega characters in it as unlockables despite being canon.

With 15 characters and not having anything from the recent game that was actually a hit with the mainstream, that’d be like Smash Ultimate not having Inklings somehow.

I thought the next game would continue to expand the roster of Sega characters, i'm fine with it just focusing on Sonic characters this time around, however sadly this means another racing game which my boy Ristar will miss out on.

Sounds like an answer from the Marketing/PR Department. Nice try, but I’m not buying what you’re selling.

I’ve been enjoying the game especially moreso because it doesn’t have the other characters from other franchises in it. I have always wanted a strictly Sonic racer. Sure there’s the usual Sega programming bugs (some more annoying than others) but it is still a fun game especially for the price.

AKA Sega said MOR SONIC!

Good for them.

I'd much rather have had the extra Sega characters with a non-canon crossover story. It's not like many video game canon Sonic stories are that great, anyway.

Yeah...nah. i would have vastly preferred the All Stars approach.

I actually really like that it focuses on Sonic.

@SheldonRandoms But ristar was in Transformed, just not as a playable character

Though I like this game, I would had prefer another Sega All-Stars Racing game whether with or without the transformation gimmick of the recent one. They could had just make a Sega All-Stars Racing with team mechanics if they want to and I would had been fine with that also.

Of course Kart racing needs a story and deep lore. Sigh, no one cares and the games more dull for it. Like Vector, Silver, Blaze etc not as exciting as a load of Sega All Stars same goes for course design.

Translation: “Our budget for this one was meager and we wanted to pump something out as quickly as possible, so we cut the roster and priced the game accordingly. If enough people buy this stripped down game, we MIGHT consider making another another more full fledged game.”

Well it was a very poor choice and a bit of a silly explanation, it's a racing game and the story was never going to be that important and with the team aspect what this kind of game really needed was a much bigger character roster. You could have had a much better story too with all manner of Sega characters teaming up with each other, looking at the game its obvious that it had budget constraints rather than any apparent desire to just have Sonic and a handful of his friends that nobody cares about

Gutted that there is no Billy Hatcher in this game, still waiting for Billy Hatcher 2.

Uhh, if anything seeing NiGHTS or Ulala interact with Sonic and co. would be amazing, what a weird way to do things I guess.

Did they explain why friends can’t join other friends in public races?

I much prefer the all star approach to the cast but I can deal with Sonic characters only. The problem here is that the roster is small and has no reason to mix and match characters and toss other characters off their predetermined teams. Why is Vector with two characters he has no connections with, why is Cream tossed out in place of three Chao that could have easily just floated along with Vanilla and Cream, and why is Zavok in Robotniks team when Zavok already has a "Deadly Six" and really hates Robotnik.
I don't get it but at least the gameplay, music, and reused stages are good.

The complete Sega roster made the other racing titles stronger games. There could easily be an All-Stars mode added to this title to at least offer the racers and vehicles from other titles. Lame

If the lack other Sega characters and of transforming tracks wasn't reason enough for me to avoid this game, reading that it tells a canon Sonic universe story totally seals the deal.
I mean if they really felt the need to "dive into the Sonic universe in more depth", more power to them, but this game is definitely not for me.

The dialogue was the main selling point of every racing game.... sega know what the people want.... sonic cannon was vital to us all.

Thanks for the 15 characters... you saved us the annoyance of having 40 unlockable and still having cannon.

This is the poorest and weakest excuse yet for a bad design/budget choice.

You weren’t doing anyone a favour!

People play car games for story?

(Need for Speed Undercover was pretty dope though.)

I would prefer more chars over a story that will most likely be very bland. Jet Set Radio, Phantasy Star char could ride a hoverboard, Valkyria Chronicles char could drive the UPC in the game. So much cool choices left aside. Thanks Sega, lol.

Terrible decision, nobody cares about story for a karting game...

Every stream I've seen of the game the streamer ignores the dialog or skips through it to get to the next event. Will be the same for me when picking the game up on sale.

OK but I wish he would explain why they have released an inferior kart game than the 2012 sonic all stars racing transformed.

They should have just made transformed deluxe, improving frame rate and adding new tracks as sonic team racing is bang average. This game also seems slow, feels like your kart is standing still and the track is moving!

Not a brilliant decision seeing as I don't know how much you could "explore the Sonic universe in more depth" in a racing game.

Surely the non Sonic characters could either be only in the multiplayer or you do some Marvel vs Capcom shenanigans where the characters all get put into the same universe.

Good decision.

I am still slightly dismayed about characters from other franchises creeping into Mario Kart.

Real answer: we took them out so we can sell you them as DLC.

@Jevarel there was an article last week that they are not releasing any dlc for this game.

I'm just not that into sonic. The all stars games at least had a few other franchises I could enjoy.

That said: sumo`s got a great track record, so I'll pick this up in good faith of at least getting a good racing game!

The story is ass and the last game was a much better game.

Yeah, or hear me out, you could also include characters that are simply used in racing and don't make an appearance in the adventure mode. Sometimes it's hard to believe that these are huge companies that have been in this business for many years.

I mean most canon sonic stories kind of suck, at the very least they’re not good, So why focus on that? I prefer the All-Stars approach as again most cannon sonic is decent to garbage.

I didn’t mind that they went back to strictly road racing in this game as I hated the controls of the flying portions in Transformed. The lack of other Sega characters is disappointing, however, but not a dealbreaker.

Good thing it wasn't to make non Sonic characters as paid dlc. Whew.

I honestly had no idea there was a Sonic canon. Is there a timeline of Sonic games?

It sounds like a bunch of codswallop.

@Doktor-Mandrake Yeah, however I wished he was playable even during the first Sega racing game. Ristar went from a dlc cameo to flagman, I was certain he would've gotten in the next game due to fan demand (Ristar had enough votes to be considered), however that won't be the case now.

Maybe if this thing was like Diddy Kong Racing with an overworld and more actual adventure elements. But as it is, I would have rather had ALL-STARS.

Sonic All Stars is brilliant and highly underrated.

Is telling a canon Sonic story really all that important? Why not do an adventure mode that crosses over all Sega properties and tell a story about all those characters working together to save the Segaverse.

The big bad could be the stayplation 2 coming to destroy Sega's hardware factories or something...

"The reason we [dropped non-Sonic universe characters] was so we could dive into the Sonic universe in more depth, and tell a canon Sonic universe story, with our team adventure mode. That was very important for us."

Yeah, that important cannon and story that doesn't even play by default in the story mode,

@Hikingguy
I havent' played the new game yet, but from what I've read (and saw in vids) it seems to me like a step backwards from Transformed. I had a blast with the previous entry, especially because of the transforming stages and vehicles. The character roster was also very cool, and this allowed for themed stages tied to varied SEGA franchises, which was very cool as well.

Now, everything seems to have been dialed back into a "standard" kart racer, although now with the team gimmick, which quite frankly, doesn't really interests me. It's like they replaced (almost) everything that made the previous game cool with something that doesn't have as much impact on the game itself, and adds this element of randomness to a race that I usually don't like (like rubberband AI), which can lead to you being the best in a race by a mile, and still lose.

Not that it seems like a bad game, but while I consider the previous entry "great", this one seems (to me) like something between "above-average" and "great". Probably still worth it, but I may wait for a sale to buy it.

I'm the type of guy that loves story modes in fighting games even if I care about the gameplay the most. Having said that, I don't need "lore" in a kart racing game: only solid gameplay, cool looking characters and a LOT of tracks. I feel Sumo Digital dropped the ball with Team Sonic Racing. In isolation, it's a pretty good game. But if you're a Sega fan and you're coming of the previous games in the franchise, this feels like a huge step back and I decided to skip it 'cause of that.

Honestly, I like this decision. I prefer single-player experiences so it's nice for once a developer is actually putting thought into it instead of "Multiplayer is the main mode so let's just throw together the single player" or not include a single player at all.

Does it suck we lost the other franchises? Yes but consider this basically seems like a one-off. I would rather they try something different and maybe fail than pump out basically the same game every time. All 3 racing games have been more unique than Mario Kart imho and each in very different ways.

My only actual complaint about the game is why they couldn't keep the Transform sections, the team based gimmick is a nice change but they can co-exist, they didn't need to ditch one for the other.

@AranBogard This x1000. Tracks and characters are everything in a Kart game and Team Sonic Racing is so, so weak in that regard. Really disappointed.

@SheldonRandoms ya he would of been neat as a playable character