Sega Knows You Hate Mario Kart’s Blue Shells

A cornerstone of the Mario Kart experience is, for better or worse, the dreaded Blue Shell.

Seen as a means of keeping the playing field (relatively) level, this item targets the player in first place, and has been the cause of much frustration over the decades—to the point where some people argue it’s actually a disadvantage to be in first position for much of each Mario Kart race.

It would seem that Sega has been aware of this issue when designing its Mario Kart rival Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, which is coming to Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S later this year.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Sonic series producer Takashi Iizuka reveals that when developing the game, there was a focus on making the racing “balanced” and “fair”, even going as far as to design the circuits before thinking about adding items to the mix.

“They wanted to make sure the racing itself without any items was fair and fun,” says Iizuka. “The dev team really took things down to the base level, and wanted to have that fun, competitive racing mechanic.”

Even when items were in place, Iizuka explains that a multitude of playtests took place in order to ensure that the experience remained fair. “Anything that was very stressful for players, anything that always allowed people to come back from behind and win all the time needed to be removed from the concept,” he says, throwing some subtle shade on Mario Kart’s most feared item.

If you’re worried that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is sounding too sterile and safe, don’t be—Iizuka admits that the development team eventually hit a balance which was just “the right amount of chaotic” while remaining “fair to the racers.”

We’ll see if this balance is successful when the game launches on September 25th. The Switch 2 version is expected at a later date.