"Multiple" new Sonic games planned for 2021

This is one of those things that...."lost in translation"? not sure the right word to describe it, but the point is, they were all Japanese exclusive from the start, and they DID do Japanese streams for sonic every month, it's just that there is nothing worthy to share for us, they pretty much just merchandise mostly exclusive to japan , they always were that, even before pandemic .

People thought there will be big announcements every month, but that was not ever going to happen, not even next year when supposedly thing return to normal-ish and can unveil their next big games

 

Oh!! Well that explains a lot, thank you for clarifying. That was definitely mis-reported by A LOT of news sources. I wasn't expecting anything huge, probably just a slow news drip... but I was genuinely confused why nothing ever came of that in the US.

Unrelated, but the Sega 60th Sonic wallpaper isn't even worth downloading TBH. It's just Sonic holding a ring with possibly the most boring backdrop conceivable.

 

I can't believe that people on here are still getting the whole "news on the 20th of every month" thing wrong. It was a SEGA Japan thing, on the Japanese social media pages. They never promised or even hinted towards major news and the fact that it was only does Japan should have been enough to tell everyone that expectations should be kept low. They did a few streams, posted some wallpapers and art on social media pages, talked about little bits of upcoming merchandise and that was it. The pandemic likely scuppered plans too, just as it did for the SXSW panel as well. So many international news sites latched on to the "Sonic 2020 initiative" thing and that set the rumour mill running, unfortunately. But ever since January, people around here have been saying that it got blown out of proportion by news outlets.

Regarding SXSW... They clearly had something to talk about there and those plans were shelved when SXSW was cancelled. For the first couple of weeks/months after the cancellation the US social media guys said that they were trying to find another way to deliver the information but it now appears that either they had no "big" news to share or that plans have been pushed back to such an extent that we won't be hearing anything for a long time.

EDIT: In my haste to reply to this I missed the couple of posts above this.

 

I'm happy for the lack of news if it means we won't be waiting a year for a gameplay trailer after the announcement trailer.

 

Eh, kinda but not really. I still honestly don't have a problem with how early on Forces was teased before it was formally unveiled. It was teased more than a year before it launched, but that was at the same time that Mania was announced. And between Forces being teased and being released, we had both Mania and Boom Fire & Ice to plug the gap (yes, I'm well aware that Boom is... Well it's Boom). It was nice to have that road map of games laid out and it was always clear that the focus would be more or less entirely on the games next up in the pipeline. We didn't get the name or gameplay reveal for Forces until Spring of 2017, which incidentally is also the time that Mania was initially slated for release. It became a bit of a problem when Mania was delayed and both games started to compete for the spotlight after that.

The main problem with Forces pre-release period in my opinion were more to do with Forces itself and the fact that SEGA couldn't really show off more of the game without spoiling it because it was so God damn small. I'd honestly be pretty stoked if we got another double-whammy like we did with the 25th Anniversary Party announcing one game and teasing/announcing another at the same time.

Team Sonic Racing on the other hand was a mess. We had leaks suggesting another Sumo Digital Sonic racing game pretty early on and then SEGA still had the gall to show us a teaser of the logo for quite a while that was supposed to be a big Sonic R reference despite the games barely sharing a genre. That game also got delayed, but there was a ridiculous drought of info for that game to the point where SEGA completely missed several opportunities to show off exciting features like car customisation. They sent that game out to die...

Actually this post has just made me consider how many Sonic games have been delayed lately. Boom Fire & Ice was delayed, so was Mania and so was TSR. Whatever game is currently in development could have always been slated for a 2021, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that something was planned for this year (even just an announcement) and the pandemic got in the way.

 

I didn’t mind the time between Mania or Forces’ announcement and their release, if anything I’m more keen on them just telling me what’s up and not feeling extremely rushed to a deadline / marketing cycle afterward.

That’s probably what they were going to do in March, but delays probably made them think that gap would be too big. But what do I know!

 

Yeah you missed quite a lot.

Anyway I'm fairly certain nothing is going to happen until next year. To be honest though, what's going to make or break this IMO is the final product. This stuff has been in the works for quite a long time (at least for Sonic Team) and I think it's fair to at least expect a degree of polish. It might be a garbage game, but hey at least there's a good chance it won't be broken

 

Here we go again:

https://twitter.com/SEGA_Europe/status/1348956161907830787

Sega Europe says they have a special announcement today. Why am I posting this here? Well Sonic was in the gif they used in the tweet sooo maybe it's Sonic related? Idk but we'll find out soon enough. They don't usually make Sonic announcements though, usually they've been behind Sonic PC ports.

Well Unleashed/Colors PC port time (God I hope not I just rebeat both those games, Colors I literally beat last week)

 

An Unleashed PC port with some quality-of-life improvements would do wonders for the game. Still love it to death but the medal collection gatekeeping is super frustrating, especially since you don't get anything for 100% completion despite the game promising you otherwise.

(I know the rumor was always that Shadow would become playable in the daytime levels and Knuckles in the night-time, which is something they could add... Knuckles' abilities don't map perfectly to the Werehog's, but given that it'd be a bonus skin, I don't really see the point in worrying too much over it)

 

Actually now that I think about it, an Unleashed complete edition would be great. Unleashed had a ton of level packs as dlc that would be great to have bundled into the main game. And there are def QoL improvements to be had (framerates, medals, glitches, unnecessary constant Professor Pickle visits you need to make thanks to you only having 2 camera shots to start with, that and he's story gatekeeping, maybe add shadows below the character for platforms because sometimes no shadow exists on objects and it makes platforming as the werehog a nightmare)

That and of course they systems the game was originally on can barely run the thing.

 

It's pretty wild to think Unleashed came out just two years after Sonic 06 on the same hardware, it looks exponentially better (part of that is better art direction, especially for the human characters, but still), but like you said it suffers massively in terms of performance. I'd say it even looks better than Generations, but that's the trade-off, I suppose.

Also: make the goddamn homing attack the same button as the jump button! Like half of the deaths I had in that game were accidental after the homing attack lost its target and just sent me flying into the abyss with an air boost.

 

Idk if the stream that just started was the announcement but if it was they're just talking about Total War dlc crap.

That and Football manager are def my top two "I absolutely couldn't care less if I tried" Sega franchises.

 

I wouldn't expect any game news, this reply seems to suggest that it *isn't* a game announcement;
https://twitter.com/SEGA_Europe/status/1348961590100566019

Tbh if they did a port of Unleashed, I'd want both the SD and HD versions in a bundle to play together; if they're gonna do it, do it right!

 

They should know better than to include Sonic in announcement tweets. They're just setting Sonic fans up for disappointment.

This is what happens after 3 years of radio silence and Sonic PR's tradition of coded messages. I just don't get why Sega can't just drop a trailer out of nowhere for Sonic like what Nintendo does. Like are we going to have to wait til that SXSW conference they seem to have a hard on for in March that'll prob be canceled again anyways? If that's the case just give us an announcement of an announcement. Just something besides corny ass memes.

 

Here's your Sonic game, now go home.

 

tfw it was just Sonic in Puyo Puyo


If you're gonna do every Sonic crossover under the sun Sega, then at least give us Total War Mobius

 

I played Sonic Mania and Sonic Time Twisted around the same time. At the time, I actually preferred Sonic Time Twisted over Mania due to its complete originality vs reused levels. It wasn't until Mania Plus came out that I really appreciated Mania. Bringing Mighty and Ray back felt like a big step in the right direction for appeasing the fans of the older and more obscure games. So for a Mania 2 to go full original and have more than just the same 3 characters that are always there would be exciting.

Have you guys noticed Cream hasn't even been in any main or side games for a while? Her 2D Sonic Advance 2 version of play could even be welcome at this point.

 

Given how much they've downplayed everyone but the core cast of Sonic/Eggman/Tails/Knuckles/Amy/Metal Sonic, yeah, Cream's absence is noticeable, at least to me. She seemed like she was developing into Amy's version of Tails, and then just...vanished.