Team Sonic Racing is gearing up for its launch later this year with another trailer highlighting new mechanics to the racing game franchise. In the trailer, we see the cooperative mechanics that are being introduced in the game that allow for players to work together to dominate races with their teammates.
The first mechanic shown is the Skimboost. Here players can speed past members of their team who are struggling in the race to give them both a speed boost. The second mechanic introduced is called the Slingshot and it gives the player a boost if they drift behind their teammates’ slipstream while they are drifting themselves. Rival Takedowns are when players knock opponents further back if they bump into them after hitting their rivals with an offensive item.
Item Box Transfer allows team members to switch items whenever in the race, here called Wisps after the power-ups in Sonic Colors. Finally, when a team uses enough of these mechanics to fill their Team Ultimate Bar, they can release their Team Ultimate. This mechanic seems to be a souped-up version of the All-Star Mode from previous Sonic racing games.
Team Sonic Racing arrives this Winter! Today, we’ve got a spotlight on the game’s new team mechanics.
Also, Big the Cat. pic.twitter.com/nIA4axktgE
— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) August 7, 2018
Team Sonic Racing differs from other kart racers, as rather than working against everyone in the race, the player needs to co-operatively work with their teammates to win the race through efficiency rather than speed. The team-based gameplay is very obviously inspired by Sonic Heroes since teams are made up of three characters and many of the teams available in the kart racing game resemble those found in the older game.
Sumo Digital is developing Team Sonic Racing, who has worked on all other previous Sonic racing games. Sega is publishing the game for the PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One and it will release in Winter of this year.
