Sumo Digital’s mysterious new kart game, with all the independent rumours flying around, is quickly becoming SEGA’s worst-kept secret. Today, we learned of a new piece of information to add to the rumour mill; that whatever the UK developer is working on will focus entirely on Sonic, and won’t feature any associated SEGA universe characters.
The latest whispers come from a user on our very own forums called ‘Larry’ – who has a mixed track record with rumours, but most recently accurately leaked details regarding Sonic Forces, so take with a huge pinch of salt – stating that the next in the Sonic karting series will be dropping the ‘& All-Stars’ part of the title.
“A new SONIC kart racer is in development,” reads the statement, corroborating the avalanche of merchandise listings pointing to the same. “Last I heard it was slated for the first quarter of 2018, but it’s looking to most likely be a holiday release.
“However, if my emphasis on Sonic wasn’t clear enough – no Sega characters will be joining the fun, this time around.”
We’re not entirely sure how to feel about this – Sonic is a strong enough brand to carry a karting game all on his own, and was obviously the key marketing linchpin for the ‘All-Stars Racing’ series, but the appearance of many characters and locations from SEGA’s storied past – Golden Axe, Billy Hatcher, Jet Set Radio and Afterburner to name a few – got a very positive response from fans.
It remains to be seen if Sumo Digital is even making a Sonic-themed kart racing game, let alone one without SEGA characters, but there’s quite a lot of smoke now to make this all seem a coincidence. And, given SEGA Community Manager Aaron Webber’s choice of words on the matter, a Sonic-only karter would definitely mean that any such project would not strictly be ‘a sequel to Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed’.
Having said that, we are tagging this whole thing up as a rumour, so don’t hold your breath. We’ll update as soon as we hear more details… probably at SXSW in March, if anytime soon.
well i’ll be sad that its not a SEGA racer but the Sonic series does have a large enough cast to carry its own roster – i mean Transformed already had the current, i guess ‘core’ Sonic characters (S, T, K, A , EGG, MS, SH) minus the additions of the B-crowd from generations.
i’ll look forward to it, come on E3
I can coupe with that and here’s the possible candidates:
Sonic the Hedgehog
Miles “Tails” Prower
Knuckles the Echidna
Amy Rose
Dr. Eggman
Metal Sonic
Shadow the Hedgehog
Rouge the Bat
E-123 Omega
Cream the Rabbit
Big the Cat
Vector the Crocodile
Espio the Chameleon
Charmy Bee
Blaze the Cat
Silver the Hedgehog
Jet the Hawk
Wave the Swallow
Storm the Albatross
Zavok
Zazz
Zomom
Master Zik
Zeena
Zor
Sticks the Badger
Infinite
Classic Sonic
Almost forgotten about Eggman’s descendent, Eggman Nega =P
Those are the same characters I was thinking of ( with the exception of classic sonic) . If they need more they can add Chaos , and Tikal.
If they included Fang, Bean, Bark, Mighty & Ray, they would be voiced by the following:
Fang – Derek Stephen Prince
Bean – Bryce Papenbrook
Mighty – Max Mittelman
Ray – Veronica Taylor
Bark would just grunt
Perfectly represents sega of today. 95% is all sonic focused.
I’m gonna be real here… I never gave a rat’s last crap about any of the other SEGA characters in the ALL-Stars racing. Not knocking the characters or IPs themselves, but I never really grew up with them. Most of what I’ve seen was from the Dreamcast era (a console I never played), and any IPs which predated the Dreamcast were from games I didn’t even know existed.
I’m neither here nor there on the All-Stars Racing front. They exist. If the next one ends up being all-Sonic characters, I may pay closer attention….and if it gets a story-mode, then I’ll probably buy it.
Do something with this game involving a story. Sonic Riders did it, and I liked that game for a little while. But if it’s just “Sonic Racing Game”, I don’t think I’ll bother.
PREACH!
i loved Riders, it’s a shame Free Rides wrecked it with its “generic grandprix” story, terrible cutscenes and motion controls.
There’s honestly no reason this can’t be as good as Mariokart or its many many (many) sequels, since they’re not really franchise-specific beyond concept. Let’s see though. I won’t be sorry to see the back of Ulala, and if it means we get Big the Cat then I might as well try and pre-order it now
With all due respect, I’ll wait until there’s official word before getting excited.
Clearly this is because it’s actually a Sonic R sequel and only a few characters will actually be in carts
If this is true, then 10 to 1, It might as well be announced during E3, and it would be a Sonic Boom Racer. After all, Knuckles has the Monster Truck with the Built-in Pizza Oven! Boom Shadow deserves to at least have a MOTORCYCLE, because it makes sense!
If this dives into the history of sonic with both stages and characters…please…I just want a stage from the sonic Adventure series.