Before you can start to unlock the Dark Sage skin, you will need to have the Secret Grand Prix unlocked. To be able to play in this Grand Prix, you will simply have to win (Get 1st overall) in all the base game Grand Prix once.



Only after winning in all of the base game Grand Prix will you get the following message from Dodon Pa after finishing/skipping through the credits which tells you that the Secret Grand Prix is unlocked.

The Secret Grand Prix, like others has 3 unique tracks that you race through with a fourth and final track being a culmination of the previous 3, the tracks are the following:


When playing through the Secret Grand Prix, I won in Super Sonic Speed however I think that any difficulty is fine as long as you finish the cup in 1st place overall.

Once you finish the Grand Prix, if you have nothing to do or are patient enough to wait to play with your newly acquired skin, completing the Secret Cup lets you view a special version of the credits, featuring screenshots from past Sonic games, along with a medley of songs.

After you decide to either skip through or watch the special credits, this pop-up will appear and you will be able to now play as Dark Sage:

After unlocking Dark Sage, you can play as her by choosing Sage in the character selection screen. While she still looks white and blue in that menu, a new box will open when selecting Sage, letting you choose between the default "Uncorrupted" look and her original appearance from Sonic Frontiers.

The same as any AI Racer skin, Dark Sage has all of the same attributes as the normal version. She is still a speed type character and has the same voice lines. However, the game treats skins as different characters. So you are playing a Grand Prix with this skin equipped, your chosen rival will have a generic comment towards you and not a personalized conversation like usual. Additionally, you may notice the default Sage as an opponent racer.

I know there's another guide on how to get this variant of the skin which is a lot more to the point (literally just how to get/how to use) but I wanted a more in-depth tutorial in a sense as if I was a complete newbie to getting stuff in games LOL.

This is also my first guide ever so hopefully I didn't over-explain anything in regards to unlocking her or how the skin functions in-game :')