In a recent interview with Japanese gaming website 4Gamer, Takashi Iizuka, the head of Sonic Team, answered some questions regarding Sonic’s future. The following excerpts from that interview were translated by Nintendo Everything.

When asked about Sonic’s upcoming 30th anniversary in 2021, Iizuka said that “planning would need to begin now,” and that he’d “really like for us to take on some sort of new challenge for it though.”

On the subject of Sonic in eSports, Iizuka was ambivalent, saying that because Sonic is primarily an action platformer, going into eSports “might not be feasible.” However, he did express a willingness to take on new genre challenges, bringing up the recently released Team Sonic Racing as an example. He indicated that “there’s always the chance that something suited to eSports might come out of those different projects.” The Sonic franchise is no stranger to spin-offs in other genres, so it would appear that an eSports focused Sonic spin-off is at least a possibility, albeit a remote one.

While this likely has nothing to do with Sonic’s still-far-off 30th anniversary, Iizuka did confirm that a new 3D Sonic title was in development earlier this year at SXSW’s Sonic panel.