It’s been 25 years since Sonic first graced CRT TVs and helped Sega bring the fight to Nintendo’s plumber-led platformer, and as Sega celebrated that anniversary last night, they announced two new Sonic games for next year. One looks to the past, the other looks to the future.
For fans of the classic 2D games, it’s Sonic Mania that will really grab your attention, with Christian Whitehead, Headcannon and PagodaWest Games collaborating on a game that remixes classic zones and stages with new ones. They have a certain pedigree, as Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley are both dev team members who worked on ports of Sonic the Hedgehog CD and the mobile versions of the first two Sonic games. The game will have a digital release in spring 2017 on consoles and PC.
One interesting thing to note is with the screenshots that have been released for the game. They’re all at a resolution of 848×480, which is a widescreen resolution, but is one factor in the game having a very classic 90s Sonic visual style.
Alongside this, the as yet untitled ‘Project Sonic 2017’ is a new game from the same team at Sonic Team who created Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations. The cinematic reveal trailer paints Sonic (and Classic Sonic) as the only hero that can save the world from what looks like Dr. Robotnik’s latest world domination attempt. Sonic’s always struggled with 3D games, so it will be interesting to see how this attempt fares.
One interesting little tidbit is that this game is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo’s upcoming NX, with a release planned for the end of 2017.
Finally, there was good news for other parts of the franchise – your opinion may differ on the matter – with Sonic Dash having been downloaded for mobile devices over 200 million times, and featuring an in game event for the 25th anniversary this week, and the announcement of a second season of Sonic Boom animated series. Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice follows the show’s story and is out on 3DS on 30th September.
Source: press release
sparkyscrum
Looking to Sonic Mania. What many of the (original) fans have been waiting years for.
As for Project Sonic 2017, well for that game I await actual gameplay.