Sonic Team Producer Talks Sonic The Hedgehog’s Future

This year has been a pretty big one for Sonic the Hedgehog. Along with the new 3D adventure Sonic Forces, we've also gotten a nice blast from the past with the retro-ized Sonic Mania, which has been a tremendous hit with fans.

But where does the little speedster go from here? Well, according to Sonic Team designer and producer Shun Nakamura, on the up and up.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Nakamura talked about how well Sonic Mania was received by fans, and where this'll lead Sonic in future titles.

"It was very interesting for me to see Sonic Mania come out, get very high scores and have people praise the game," Nakamura explained. "From the team's perspective, we're still going to be making 3D games for the audience that likes that style of Sonic – when we see the reactions that Mania got, the entire team sat down and thought it was really interesting, and we should break down what people liked about Mania, and in the future – when we build our 3D games – see what essence we can take from Sonic Mania and put into a 3D world, to give people what they're looking for and that they've found in Sonic Mania."

He continued, "Really the core audience the team was trying to get [with Sonic Forces] is the people who like those modern Sonic games – and even reaching beyond that core group of Sonic Fans, we created the create your own hero feature, and we're trying to get some of the younger kids who enjoy customising things," explained Nakamura. "That's really the core main group we're targeting when we're making this game. From a strategic standpoint, what we really wanted to do was have two titles and not have them fight it out to see who wins. There's the classic game that classic Sonic fans will love and get excited for – and maybe they'll go onto [Sonic Forces] to try a modern Sonic game. We wanted those fans to get what they wanted, but also maybe try something new. From a reverse standpoint, we wanted to reintroduce classic Sonic to fans of the modern games – and maybe bring our group of very divided fans together."

Hey, at least Sonic is being well received again from both audiences, and it appears he's doing great for Sega, too. Now we'll just have to see what 2018 brings.

Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces are available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.