Sonic’s creative director Takashi Iizuka gave an interesting answer when he was asked about the return of Sega’s classic games library.
Video Games Chronicle asked Iizuka point blank about two Sega platformers, from many of the same people who made Sonic games. Namely, Nights Into Dreams and Burning Rangers. Iizuka did not commit to either game coming back. Instead, he said this:
“I can’t say yes to anything right now. These days I’m the creative officer for Sonic the Hedgehog, so I’m totally focused on that side of the business.
So I can’t really speak for anyone else, but Sonic Team in Japan has been ramping up and hiring lots of people recently – they have more people than ever. So there may be some future where you’ll be hearing about these kinds of titles.”
Iizuka’s statement follows the recent announcement of Sonic Superstars, which will be releasing later this year on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows on Steam and Epic Games Store.
While the prior 2D Sonic game, Sonic Mania, was made by a collection of fangame and ROMhack developers who were given the opportunity to realize an official new Sonic game, Sonic Superstars is coming from Team Sonic themselves, alongside Arzest, a studio that is also comprised of a lot of veterans from Team Sonic.
Sega seemed to have been happy focusing on their newer games, which some people may rightly argue have taken on classic status themselves, such as Total War or the Like A Dragon franchise, FKA Yakuza. If Sega had been rereleasing old games, they were mainly in the form of rereleases of those games into new platforms.
But Sonic Superstars seems to be the latest step in a growing movement in Sega to bring back their classic games in some way or form. Sega has brought back Virtua Fighter in a very limited capacity. The game has not seen a real rerelease to new platforms, but Sega is promoting it for FGC esports in their native Japan.
Similarly, Sega is set to release a new Samba De Amigo game, a few years after their release of a new Monkey Ball game. These games have their fans, but they are not necessarily among Sega’s most profitable IP. So it seems Sega’s choices are not about bringing back their heavy hitters, but for games that they seem to have ideas for new games for.
We don’t know what Sega will be bringing back next, but they probably won’t move on anything unless they have an idea for that said game.
