Liam Robertson: "if you want a Sonic Mania 2, you're going to have to be as vocal as possible"

For any normal company in the gaming industry sales and the profit to budget ratio should have quickly dictated a Mania sequel but that’s no good for Sonic Team because the bigger Mania and it’s team gets the more expendable they look.
I can see why Liam would say that about fans being vocal about classic in Forces because they enable Sonic Team’s attempt at job security, they can spin it as “classic Sonic is bad” rather than “our attempt at classic Sonic and the way we shoehorned him in was bad” or even using Classic Sonic as a scapegoat as to why Forces was revived so poorly.
These fans were preemptively angry at the thought of a Team Classic and a Mania level in Team Sonic Racing that didn’t happen outside of some upcoming iOS exclusive content.

If Sonic Team really does fear the success of Mania I imagine it would be startlingly trivial for them to use these sorts of fan reactions as ammo inside the corporate politics of SOJ to get them fixed to ignore it, we have a long history of them not doing what was best for the franchise in spite of reality so this wouldn’t be the first.
As bullshit as those Zippo leaks might be they do present the case Sonic Team or some other faction in Sega would push to prevent another Mania.

I think a lot of what might happen depends on who is working on Origins, the fact that Sega hasn’t mentioned this despite the insane reaction of the audience when Whitehead’s logo appeared in the Mania reveal trailer is ominous to me.

 

Sooooo, nobody (myself included) knows who this Liam Robertson fella is or why his views hold any weight? Interesting.

Well, regardless of who he is, he does have a point. While I generally question just how much value hold petitions as far as getting desired results (at least online petitions anyway), I feel like it's a bit different here since the vocalized desire for Mania 2 is backed by just how well the first one did in 2017. It's not like folks are rallying to request a sequel to a game from over a decade ago which Sega (or literally anyone) could argue the masses may not care about; no this is the follow-up to something that they pretty much just did, and it was shown to be a hit even among the newer generation — you know, the generation who so-called 'wouldn't be interested' in the 2D stuff, depending on who you ask.

 

Liam Robertson hasn’t really been in the spotlight recently but he was a pretty big leaker/insider type for a while. I believe some of his stuff was right but he’s been wrong a lot as well. I’m not sure which leaks were right or wrong, but judging from the reaction I’m willing to bet there’s more of the latter than the former. I don’t know any specific details but as far as game industry leakers go he’s fairly well known.

Whether or not he’s right about Mania it would still be best to make noise about it anyway. Something like a petition might not do much but at least it’s something that shows fan interest.

 

Sega know Classic Sonic sells. That's why they are making Origins and putting Classic Sonic in Monkey Ball. I think Sonic on Apple Arcade is getting classic DLC too.

Iizukia said in the past that he doesn't think there is anything new that could be done in a Mania 2. I disagree, because I think a follow up with all new stages would be awesome.

But, Iizukia often says that he doesn't want to make the same games again.

You can see this with Generations. It was one of the best received Sonic games and still sells well now 10 years on. Making a Generations sequel seems like a no brainer just like Mania 2, but it hasn't happened. Same with Colours. It was another strong performer ripe for a sequel.

But instead, Iizukia has said that he'd rather take elements from these games and make something new. That's why Lost World went in a new direction. Forces had elements from Generations, but it was fundamentally a different title that was more about the avatar and Eggman winning, rather than remaking key moments from the 3 eras of Sonic.

Sonic Adventure 2 was the last main line game to get a direct sequel. Since, then Sonic Team have tried something new with each title (06 was a retread of Adventure, but Iizukia wasn't involved with that).

That's probably why we won't see a Mania 2. Iizukia just doesn't want to do these types of follow ups any more.

It's kind of like why we never get playable Tails, Knuckles etc any more in main titles. Iizukia has said that he doesn't want to do that any more, at least not until he's got Sonic to a point that he is happy with. (Forces was interesting step away from that, as it had Avatar and Shadow, although Shadow was just a Sonic re-skin).

If a Mania 2 does happen, then with Iizukia it would probably be completely different from the original (Just like how Lost World was a completely different direction from Generations).

I also doubt there's any ego involved. Iizukia has been pretty clear that Mania only happened because of him, and he even recently name dropped Christian as someone he enjoyed working with.

 

I've seen a few people in this thread questioning the validity of what Liam has said, and that's fine. A healthy amount of scepticism should be encouraged. However, he broke the news in March that several members of Toys for Bob (Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot 4) left the company after one of their projects was cancelled. Just over a month later, we heard the news that the devs are now being put to work by Activison as a dedicated Call of Duty developer.

And I recall that the Crash subreddit was in absolute denial about this before the news was officially broken, saying similar things as to what has been said here. At the end of the day, you don't have to trust Liam. Insider info is a sketchy business with a lot of pretenders and pariahs. However, I think what Joebro has said is absolutely worth acting on. Let SEGA know we want a follow-up to Mania. Because while we've no evidence that there is any kind of internal apathy towards the idea, we've also no evidence to suggest such a game is being worked on. We shouldn't be complacent and allow the momentum towards truly establishing a 2D, classic-styled Sonic subseries die out simply because we're a bit conflicted on what somebody has said on Twitter.

We have nothing to lose by making our voices heard so long as our message is clear. We want a follow-up to Sonic Mania that is fully original in its levels and that is worked on by the people who brought us that first wonderful game. Don't let SEGA think otherwise.

 

People who cannot come to grips with the idea sega or at least the people in charge of sonic may just generally be kind of incompetent or at least out of touch with what people want and have created an unfounded conspiracy that fits that narrative. Because coming to terms with that means coming to terms with idea that you may never actually be pleased by a sonic product again and not for any logical reason, but because the people behind it are weird.

The other part to this sega has had internal beef and have been petty to other branches of itself even over sonic in the past. Doesn't make the sentiment any more true, but there's precedent for it in sega's history. But I get the feeling regurgitating that info don't actually know that history and its mostly just the first thing I mentioned

 

Say what you want about Liam Robertson’s character but this guy isn’t someone to be ignored.

He leaked the cover art for the first Mario + Rabbids (and used it as his profile picture on Twitter for about a week). Recently he has scooped Mario + Rabbids 2 on his Patreon, Toys For Bob working on Call of Duty, and concept art for a character in a cancelled (?) Crash game.

Although like people on this thread has insinuated, he HAS been wrong from time to time and a really bad attitude when he’s called out on it.

Says Crash 4 wouldn’t get next gen ports. Crash 4 gets next gen ports. People call him out. Says he’s getting harassed.

Says the TFB employees that left were fired and TFB became a COD-only studio. The ex-employees says nobody was fired except those who left on their own terms. An Activision spokesperson echoes that. He gets called out. Still insists people were laid off and antagonizes the Crash and Spyro fandom for “being in denial”. Oh, and says he’s getting harassed.

Point is, no “insider” is 100% right all the time. Hell, Zippo got two things right out of the 50 things he got wrong.

 

I like the part where you tell us not to ignore them and give valid reasons to ignore him.

Even so, I've said before that I have a personal policy to NEVER believe leaks. Either they're right and the surprise is spoiled, or they're wrong and I got worked up over nothing.

 

And I like how you skipped the parts where I give valid reasons why he shouldn’t be ignored. If you actually read what I said and didn’t just skim through it to cherrypick which parts you needed for your “a-ha gotcha” moment, I said in the LAST SENTENCES that I brought up both times he was wrong and times he was right to show that not every “insider” is 100% right every time. Because, y’know, everyone is writing him off as completely unreliable based off of maybe 1 or 2 wrong scoops.

And he shouldn’t be written off. To be frank even when he’s wrong, he’s not 100% wrong. Wrong that TFB employees were laid off. Right that they’re not working on anything other than COD as of now. Could be possibly wrong that that they’re only a support group. Wether or not he’s right on that part, he was still one of the firsts to report TFB is working on Warzone in the first place.

 

I don't know anything about Liam, but it's also blatantly obvious that a Mania successor by Evening Star isn't coming anytime soon. Not sure if it's SEGA or Sonic Team to blame, but there's been no news about it for years and if they were going to do it they would have announced it by now.

 

Historically, SOJ have been jealous of SOA's success', in terms of Sonic and general hardware sales. There is enough anecdotal evidence from the "glory days" to prove this.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, between "professional jealousy" and "general incompetence".

 

Liam's track record is spotty...but it's pretty strange that they didn't get right to work on a sequel, lol. It sold above expectations. fans and critics alike agree that it's one of the best games in the series. Just about everybody wants more from this team. A lot of the conversation post release was centered around what they could do next time to make an even better game.

There's definitely some kind of hold up there, and it might be good to make our stance clearer on this to help sway Sega in the right direction. I'm for a campaign whether Liam has any credible sources or not.

 

That I'm down for. Can we make Twitter bots to send 100 tweets of "SONIC MANIA 2 WHEN" directly to Sega once every 5 minutes?

Hyperbole of course, but yeah, we could certainly try.

 

If there's ever a Mania 2, can they please make Sonic blue again and not whatever that ungodly neon cyan palette was? He looks fine on the title, box art, promotional art, the animated shorts, etc. But that in-game palette, holy shit...

Even so, they streamlined the structure heavily. No more hubs, and it automatically cuts between different characters' parts of the stories, rather than tell their entire stories exclusively from their perspective in their own campaigns. Adventure 1 may be the basis of Adventure 2, but it's still a very different experience.

 

Honestly this is vague enough that I don't think it matters whether or not this is info is truly legit. All it really amounts to is "There might be a Mania 2, if fans yell about it enough." Hasn't that been the common opinion about Mania 2 for a while? At least Zippo was brave enough to "leak" the return of Sonic Pocket Adventure

 

With talk of interpreting Iizuka's words and thought process, and making petitions, I think it's worth considering that what many of us here would consider a followup to Sonic Mania and what Iizuka would consider a followup to Sonic Mania might not be the same thing.

"Sonic Discovery", a Mega Drive trilogy-styled game with only new Zones, was pitched to Iizuka, and he transformed that into "Sonic Mania", a game that re-imagines classic Zones. Asking for "Mania 2" might signal to Iizuka that we specifically want another game made largely of re-imagined classic Zones. Mania is, in execution, a huge celebration game. Interpreted this way, I think it makes his comment that they basically did everything they could think to do for "the Sonic Mania project" make a different sort of sense, one in which asking for "Mania 2 but with only new Zones" may come across as oxymoronic.

"Sonic 5 by Evening Star" might more properly get the message across, idk. Am I saying "let's try and petition Sega to let Evening Star make Sonic 5"? No. But, food for thought.

 

Thinking about it more, if we do try something, we should wait for real confirmation of who's doing Origins. If StealthTax are doing that, I don't want them to get burnt out on Sonic.

 

Vocal? Fans have literally never kept quiet about their lust for a sequel. You can't get more vocal than that, so what does he want them to do? Build a space colony and pissing on the moon with a "#SonicMania2"?

It will make it amusing to see the reaction when it does release and its mostly old levels again. No originality, no inspired creative spark, just mining nostalgia in perpetuity.

 

I will say, I'm a "classic fan" that never asked for Mania in the first place, but I'd be pretty.....sad?....if we never get a proper follow up?

After Mania's success I kind of assumed there would be some kind of follow up even if it wasn't titled Mania 2. A spiritual successor at least. And I wasn't asking for it but figured I would get it and be happy as I was with Mania 1, which was a phenomenal game and definitely got me in my feels at times. And Laura's right, there's really nothing visible on the horizon.

My primary interest has always been in seeing momentum gameplay in 3D done well, so I root for that all the time but I would support a campaign for a Mania successor if it would actually help.