Sonic Racing Crossworlds Gets Backlash For Pre-Order Bonus

They’re giving voice to one who has no voice.

Given the state of the video game industry right now, with developers and publishers making “questionable moves” left and right, you would be right to say that gamers have basically become “hyper sensitive” to everything around them in the gaming space, and are ready to pounce if they think that a game, game dev, or publisher are trying to “screw them” for no good reason. The latest belief of this comes from Sonic Racing Crossworlds, which SEGA has billed as its most ambitious racing title ever, which is not a hyperbole in some ways. After all, the game is bringing in characters from other SEGA franchises to help flesh out the roster.

However, what is getting players a bit antsy right now isn’t just the $70 price for the game, which is fair given how much “content” is likely to be in the game, but the fact that a certain character will be locked behind the “wall” of a pre-order bonus. That character is Werehog Sonic:

There’s even more to this than you think, as Sonic Racing Crossworlds has downright bragged about all the incredible voice content that’ll be in the game, including characters who have never met in canon being able to interact with one another, alongside “familiar” characters having special lines to give to one another to highlight their shared histories.

However, as fans were quick to note, Werehog Sonic doesn’t have any voice at all, and that raised their ire even further. One of the reasons for this is that they’re not even asking for new voice lines, but instead, SEGA could simply pull from the original game and use lines from it for a sense of “authenticity.”

Just as important is that for a certain remaster that came out last year, SEGA decided to bring in the one and only Keanu Reeves to voice Shadow The Hedgehog for some movie tie-in DLC. So, they were able to do that for a remaster with some “extra content,” but they’re not willing to do something basic for a brand-new game that is meant to “push boundaries.”

This only gets built upon when it was brought up that other future DLC characters won’t have voice lines, either. That doesn’t make a lot of sense in gamers’ minds, and you can see their viewpoints very well.

Obviously, SEGA could change this in the future, but whether they actually will is up for debate. Either way, if you DO want the Werehog character, you’ll need to get your pre-orders in!