WILDLAP / JOURNAL / KART RACERS ONLINE
Best Online Kart Racing Games for PC (2026): Cross-Play Compared
The best online kart racing game on PC in 2026 is Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds: 12-player lobbies, cross-play with PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, ranked World Match races, private Friend Match lobbies, and more people on Steam than any other kart racer we checked. Without paying, Disney Speedstorm offers 8-player races, cross-play and ranked leagues alongside a shop, and SuperTuxKart free community servers with no shop.
This guide compares the twelve games in our PC kart racer catalog that have their own online racing: lobby size, console cross-play, friend play, local players, price model and Steam player counts. The facts come from official sources, not hands-on testing; where none states something, the table says so.
We develop Wildlap, which has not announced online play, so it appears separately near the end.
Online kart racers on PC compared
Rows are ordered by the highest Steam player count we saw, so the top of the table is where a race is most likely tonight.
| Game | Online race | Cross-play with consoles | Racing with friends | Local players | Price model | Steam players at our check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds | Up to 12 | Yes: PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Steam and Epic | Friend Match lobbies by invite or Lobby ID | Up to 4 | Paid; Season Pass and packs extra | 263 |
| Disney Speedstorm | Up to 8 | Yes: PlayStation, Xbox and Switch; each player enables it | Private Track lobbies with invites | Up to 4 in Local Freeplay | Free-to-play; in-app purchases | 165 |
| Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection | Up to 10 | Not documented | Custom Game lobbies with invites; split-screen groups can go online | Up to 4 | Paid | 23 |
| The Karters 2: Turbo Charged | Limit not published | No; planned for the full release | Private rooms by lobby code; split-screen online | Up to 6 | Paid, Early Access | 8 |
| Garfield Kart - Furious Racing | Up to 8 | Not documented | Rooms on a region server; no private lobby documented | Up to 4 | Paid | 8 |
| Team Sonic Racing | Up to 12 | Not documented | Custom lobbies with invites; local players count towards the 12 | Up to 4; 3 in Team Adventure | Paid | 8 |
| Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix | Up to 8 | Not documented | Not documented | Up to 4 | Paid | 4 |
| Garfield Kart 2 - All You Can Drift | Up to 8 | Yes per Steam and Xbox; platforms not named | Public or private lobbies with a room code | Up to 4 | Paid; cosmetic pack extra | 2 |
| DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing | Up to 8 | Not documented | Not documented | Split-screen, limit not on Steam | Paid; Rally Pack extra | 2 |
| Oh Baby Kart | Up to 8 | No console version; Windows and macOS share servers | Custom lobbies with friends | Split-screen, limit not on Steam | Free-to-play; shop, passes and boxes | 1 |
| Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway | Up to 12 | Not documented | Not documented | Split-screen, limit not on Steam | Paid; Turbo Pack extra | 0 |
| SuperTuxKart | 8 per server by default | No console version; Windows, macOS, Linux and Android share servers | Host or join community servers; password for private | Up to 8 | Free | Not on Steam |
Steam players is the highest concurrent count from Valve's player statistics in five readings between 11:15 and 12:05 UTC on Thursday, October 22, 2026; it counts everyone in the game, not only online racers, and evenings and weekends differ.
Full list: every kart racer with online play in our PC catalog.
How we compared online kart racers
- Every catalog game with its own online racing. Twelve qualify; Remote Play Together alone does not count.
- Official sources only. Steam store pages, publisher manuals and support pages, developer posts on Steam and first-party console stores. Otherwise the table says Not documented.
- Activity from Steam itself. Valve's public player statistics, read five times on the day of publication, with the highest reading and the time window shown. We did not measure matchmaking times, latency or how often lobbies fill.
The best online kart racers on PC
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds - the biggest lobbies and full cross-play
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is the most complete online package here. World Match runs 12-player ranked lobbies with ranks from E to A and Legend; Friend Match is the private side, where the host sets race rules, items and CrossWorlds and friends join from the Friend List or by Lobby ID. Squads of up to four can queue together, and SEGA matches PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Steam and Epic players in one pool. The PC version uses Denuvo, and Valve's notes say even single-player needs an internet connection. With 263 Steam players at our check, it was by far the busiest of the kart racers we checked.
Disney Speedstorm - free to start, cross-play across consoles and PC stores
Disney Speedstorm races eight players online, with cross-play across PlayStation, Xbox and Switch and between the Steam, Epic, Microsoft Store and Gameloft Store versions; Gameloft treats it as an option each player switches on. Private Track in the Friendly Race menu is the custom lobby for invited friends. Ranked arrived with Season 18 in February 2026: seven leagues from Rookie to Unstoppable, seasonal resets and a racer upgraded to Diamond level to enter. The conditions are a shop with paid random items and a connection for every mode except Local Freeplay. We saw 165 Steam players.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed - take a split-screen group online
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection is a 2013 game that still races up to 10 players online through Steam. Match Making drops you into Race, Arena or Lucky Dip playlists; Custom Game creates a private lobby, lets you invite friends from your friends list and, according to the official PC manual, takes two to four split-screen players into an online race. Nothing is documented about cross-play, but it had 23 Steam players at our check and is Verified for Steam Deck.
Team Sonic Racing - ranked or casual, 12 racers local and online combined
Team Sonic Racing runs 12 players per race, and its manual states that Online Multiplayer takes a combined total of twelve local and online players, so a split-screen group joins the same race. Quick Play, Team Race and Standard playlists come as Ranked, matching players of similar skill, or Casual; friends use Create Custom Lobby, Join Lobby or Invite Friends, and computer-controlled racers fill empty slots. The last patch dates from July 2019, it uses Denuvo, it is Unsupported on Steam Deck, and it had 8 Steam players.
The Karters 2: Turbo Charged - dedicated servers and lobby codes, few racers
The Karters 2: Turbo Charged has the most modern online design here: dedicated servers, ranked public lobbies with an Elo rating, private rooms joined by lobby code with Steam overlay invites, six-player split-screen with online support, Workshop tracks in private lobbies, replays, a spectator mode and a 30-second reconnect window, with October 2026 patches. The catch is the player base: the store publishes no online player limit, the developer acknowledged low online counts in January 2026, and we saw 8 Steam players. Console versions with cross-play are goals for the full release, targeted for the end of 2026.
SuperTuxKart - free community servers without a shop
SuperTuxKart has raced online since version 1.0 in 2019. There is no matchmaking: you pick a server from the list or host your own from the Online menu, with a password to keep it private. Servers hold eight players by default, a host can raise that at the cost of performance, split-screen players can join unless the host disallows it, and Windows, macOS, Linux and Android clients share the same servers. Internet play needs a free STK account created inside the game; LAN play needs none. It is open source with no shop, ads or DRM, and not on Steam, so we have no player count.
Garfield Kart - Furious Racing and Garfield Kart 2
Garfield Kart - Furious Racing races eight players online. You pick a region server and join a room there; no private lobby, invite or room code is documented. An online ranking added in June 2020 sets a worldwide rank with twelve grades from C- to S+, and each track has a time-trial leaderboard. We saw 8 Steam players.
Garfield Kart 2 - All You Can Drift also races eight, with computer-controlled drivers filling empty seats, and a January 2026 patch added private lobbies joined by a room code. Steam and the Xbox store list cross-platform multiplayer without naming the platforms. It uses kernel-level Easy Anti-Cheat, Valve's notes say single-player needs an internet connection, and it is Unsupported on Steam Deck. We saw 2 Steam players.
Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2 and 3 and DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing
These three licensed racers list online play on Steam, but the documentation stops there. Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix states online races for eight on Steam; Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway is listed at 12 online players on GameMill's site and DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing at 8 on Bamtang's, while their Steam pages give no number. Nothing official describes private lobbies, ranked play or cross-play, and two of the three have no developer posts on Steam. With 0 to 4 Steam players at our checks, buy them for split-screen and treat online as a bonus.
Oh Baby Kart - free-to-play custom lobbies on Windows and macOS
Oh Baby Kart is built for online play. Since its 2.0 update in October 2025 a match has eight racers, friends host or join custom lobbies with their own item pools, maps and a Battle Mode, and Windows and macOS players share servers. There is no ranked ladder, but there are global leaderboards, level-gated Pro queues and developer-run tournaments on Discord. Free players get every online mode; any purchase unlocks the solo modes. The last developer post dates from June 2026 and we saw a single Steam player.
Which online kart racer fits how you play?
For racing with console friends
CrossWorlds and Disney Speedstorm have documented console cross-play; in Speedstorm every player has to enable it. Garfield Kart 2 lists cross-platform multiplayer without naming the platforms. The other nine have no console version or say nothing official.
For a couch group that goes online together
Transformed takes split-screen players into a Custom Game online, Team Sonic Racing counts local players towards its twelve, The Karters 2 advertises split-screen online support, and SuperTuxKart lets split-screen players join a server. Our split-screen kart racing guide covers the local side.
For ranked ladders and leaderboards
CrossWorlds has World Match ranks and Legend Competitions, Team Sonic Racing has Ranked playlists, The Karters 2 has an Elo rating with monthly and all-time rankings, Disney Speedstorm has seasonal leagues, and Garfield Kart - Furious Racing has a worldwide rank with twelve grades.
Without paying
SuperTuxKart is free with no shop and needs only an STK account. Disney Speedstorm and Oh Baby Kart are free-to-play with in-game shops; our free kart racing games guide explains them, and our Steam ranking by player reviews shows how players rate them.
If you want a full lobby tonight
Only CrossWorlds and Speedstorm had hundreds of Steam players at our checks; Transformed had 23 and every other game 8 or fewer. Garfield Kart 2, Team Sonic Racing and Speedstorm fill empty seats with computer-controlled racers.
Local-only kart racers and Remote Play Together
Eleven local-only games in our catalog list Steam Remote Play Together: Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure, Super Indie Karts, Nightmare Kart, Smurfs Kart, Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart, Race With Ryan, Kart Attack, Bears Can't Drift!?, Renzo Racer, Nitro Battle Racing and HaberDashers. PAW Patrol: Grand Prix and HardDriverz do not list it, and Beach Buggy Racing is not on Steam.
Remote Play Together streams the host's split-screen session to Steam friends, who play through the stream with their own controllers; only the host needs to own the game. Valve's Remote Play page describes it separately from a game's own online modes.
Wildlap: a PC kart racer to watch
Wildlap is the PC kart racing game we are developing at PolySophia. It combines drift boosts, items for attack and defence, kart upgrades and varied tracks, including Abyss Circuit, where magnetic lanes take the race onto the ceiling. In the garage, coins earned in races pay for upgrades to speed, acceleration, handling and boost.
Wildlap is not in this comparison. It is still in development, its price and release date have not been announced, and there is no public demo yet. The full game is planned to include single-player racing and local split-screen on PC; online multiplayer has not been announced. You can see the current direction in the gameplay overview and track presentation.
To hear what comes next, get Wildlap updates.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best online kart racing game on PC?
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds: 12-player lobbies, ranked and private modes, cross-play on every platform it is sold on and the largest Steam player count of the games we checked. Disney Speedstorm is the free-to-play alternative, SuperTuxKart the free one without a shop.
Which PC kart racers have cross-play with consoles?
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Disney Speedstorm and Garfield Kart 2, whose Steam and Xbox listings name no platforms. Oh Baby Kart and SuperTuxKart have no console versions.
How do I race online with friends in a PC kart racer?
Through a private lobby: Friend Match in CrossWorlds, Private Track in Speedstorm, Custom Game in Transformed, custom lobbies in Team Sonic Racing and Oh Baby Kart, room codes in The Karters 2 and Garfield Kart 2, and a password-protected server in SuperTuxKart.
Is there a free online kart racer for PC?
Yes. SuperTuxKart is free and open source with community servers and no shop. Disney Speedstorm and Oh Baby Kart are free to download, sell items in the game and give free players their online modes.
Can a split-screen group race online together?
In four: Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Team Sonic Racing, The Karters 2 and SuperTuxKart. The others keep split-screen offline, as Disney Speedstorm does with Local Freeplay, or do not document it.
Are the online lobbies still active?
No publisher here has announced a shutdown, but at our checks CrossWorlds and Speedstorm had hundreds of Steam players and most other games fewer than ten.
Does Wildlap have online multiplayer?
Not announced. Wildlap is in development with single-player racing and local split-screen on PC planned for the full game. Sign up for release updates.