No matter the vehicle's current state, racers can perform drifts in order to gain boosts, the strength of said boost increasing the longer the drift is held. This returns in Golden, with several gameplay changes allowing for tighter controls in all three vehicular modes.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed introduced the ability to transform one's vehicle from car form into either boat or plane form and back again by driving through Transformation Gates. The shop also includes two different versions of every course as well: one version omits all transformations for a strictly land-based race, and the other reverses the track while adding additional hazards these alternate versions are appended with the suffixes 'Simple' and 'Extra', respectively. Depending on the player's placement in races, the player will earn different amounts of, which can be used to purchase new courses and music tracks in the game's store. The goal of the game is to place higher in the rankings of a race in order to earn the most points overall at the end of the selection of courses. The gameplay of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Golden is very comparable to that of Nintendo's Mario Kart series. The game was designed to highlight Sega's history, with the game releasing to celebrate the company's 60th anniversary in 2020. Sonic Team also aided development by working on a majority of the Sonic the Hedgehog content included in the game. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Golden was developed by Existence Software and Sumo Digital, the latter having also developed Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, and Team Sonic Racing. Much like both of the previous Sonic & All-Stars Racing titles, Golden includes several third party characters, and each version of the game includes at least one character exclusive to that version. Being a sequel to Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Golden includes the various gameplay mechanics introduced in that game (such as being able to drive on land, on sea, and in the air), with adjustments made to improve the overall game feel. Much like its two predecessors, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Golden sees a number of characters from properties owned by Sega (as well as some guest characters) coming together to compete in kart races. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Golden (Japanese: ソニック&オールスターレーシングＧＯＬＤＥＮ Sonikku & Ōru-Sutāzu Rēshingu GOLDEN), stylized in some countries as Sonic & All-Stars Racing: GOLDEN, is the sequel to 2012's Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and serves as the fifth instalment of the Sega All-Stars series of crossover titles. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (2012) Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, Steam Sumo Digital, Existence Software, Sonic Team

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