We now have interesting new rumors about what Sega has planned next, and this is one for the Sonic fans.
Midori corroborates rumors from Necro Felipe of Universo Nintendo that Sega is making a Sonic Heroes remake. To punctuate that rumor, she also backs up Necro’s claim that this remake is being built on Unreal Engine 5.
Released in 2003, for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Windows, Sonic Heroes was the first new and original Sonic game made after they left the hardware market. Of course, that also makes this the first original Sonic title to be made for multiple platforms.
The main gimmick that Sonic Heroes was best remembered for is that you don’t play as single characters, but as teams of three, and you can subsequently switch between them to make use of each character’s different abilities. That meant that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were all playable as one team, another team had Shadow, Rouge and E-123 Omega, another team had Amy Rose, Cream, and Big, and so forth. At the time, this title had the biggest roster of playable characters in any Sonic game.
Sonic Heroes was mainly a 3D platformer, that came with many levels to race through and explore, many mini-games and secrets to find, and just generally a lot of things to do.
Sonic Heroes was a sales success but critical reception was mixed. Most of that criticism was leveled against Sonic Team’s struggles adapting to making 3D platformers, including figuring out the camera and issues with the lock-on attacks. The Windows and PlayStation 2 versions were also notable for their performance issues.
So it can be argued that there is a real case for Sega to remake this title. Sonic Heroes certainly has its fans, but a revision could address the issues that reviewers mentioned years ago. And perhaps more interestingly, Sonic Team today could go a step further and modernize its game design, to better realize its potential.
Interestingly enough, Midori also says that there is no planned remake for Sonic Adventure. Necro for his part claims that he hasn’t heard anything about this possible project either. If we were honest about this, it wasn’t as likely that Sega would want to remake the Sonic Adventure games because they received harsher critical reception. Many gamers and critics even then see these titles as Sega not quite figuring out how to make 3D platformers, and Sonic Heroes was definitely better received than they were.
But maybe those games could also be polished with modern remakes too. In any case, Sonic Heroes is a worthy title to bring back, and one we hope Sega officially announces soon.
