Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a great racing game with a ton of post-launch support. Unfortunately, the balance between bombarding players with new content and how it’s been monetized hasn’t been equally impressive. Sega recently teased a collaboration with Final Fantasy VII and the rest of its year 2 DLC plans. The only problem is that fans who spent $100 on the Deluxe Edition will have to pay extra to access it.
The game’s year 2 DLC roadmap kicks off on November 3 and was previewed over the weekend. It includes the following crossovers: Godzilla, Evangelion , Virtual Sanrio Puroland, Segaland, Midgar Pack, and Reload Revival Royal. Each pack is expected to add new stages and character skins, and the whole thing will cost players $40. Cloud racing against Sonic racing against SpongeBob? Sounds neat! Here’s why some existing players feel screwed.
It goes back to a tweet Sega put out prior to Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds‘ launch in June 2025. “Pre-Orders for the Digital Deluxe Edition are now live!” it read (via TheGamer). “This edition includes: Base Game, Season Pass, All future paid downloadable content, Bonus Sonic Prime characters.” It’s that “all future paid downloadable content” that has gotten Sega in hot water and led their latest promotional marketing for year 2 DLC to get community noted on X.
“All future DLC” is very different from just year 1 DLC, even if that’s what some people might have expected based on recent industry practices. “Paid 100 dollars for this shit, guess i learned my lesson,” one player wrote on Reddit. “Whether intentional or accidental, these DLC rug pulls have become increasingly common as online games become launch pads for mini-DLC storefronts. They’re especially common in fighting games when certain types of content gets promised at launch as being part of an initial expansion pass, only for a stage here or a character there to somehow drop out along the way.
‼️🗣️https://t.co/eOpLkf2ONz pic.twitter.com/zgFkjkWJGd
— Jibber Jabber (@JibbJabberish) October 12, 2026
Adding insult to injury is that some players already feel like too many of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds crossover characters and stages were saved for the paid DLC. “It still pisses me off that the whole point of this game was that it was a crossover between different properties, but the game launched with only sonic characters and zero crossovers,” one fan wrote on the PS5 subreddit. “They started slowly adding Sega ones, but charging extra for anything that wasn’t already a Sega character.”
We’ll see if Sega offers a make-good of some kind of just marshals on. The CrossWorlds DLC packs are usually $6, and players will have some time to make up their minds about whether to buy them. While the Godzilla pack arrives in early November, Evangelion doesn’t arrive until the start of 2027. Timing on the Final Fantasy VII stuff is still TBD.