SEGA Japan’s President and COO Yukio Sugino has hinted that a number of “reboots and remakes” of classic game IP could be on the way, specifically mentioning the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
In a new interview with Famitsu (interpreted by DualShockers in this article), the SEGA exec shared his delight at the worldwide success of the Sonic IP over the last fiscal year, pointing to the warm fan reception and sales success of Sonic Frontiers along with the monstrous box office smash that was Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie.
“That… makes me happy, and I was also happy to receive a lot of messages, mainly from users in North America, such as ‘I’m very happy that Sonic is heading in the right direction,” Sugino reportedly said.
Elsewhere, while discussing Samba de Amigo: Party Central – a new game in a Sonic Team series recently brought back from the dead – Sugino noted that, while Party Central is not a reboot in and of itself (rather, “a new game in the series”), he is interested in exploring reboots and even reboot-like features within new games.
He referenced the upcoming Sonic Superstars as an example to his point – “a return to 2D action, and although it is a new game, I would like to implement reboot-like measures as well” – and added that full-on “reboots and remakes” will be considered when plotting out future plans for each IP. Especially Sonic.
“Of course, we have to do new things, but as with all IPs, we don’t have new works or reboots,” DualShockers quotes him as saying. “We will develop while selecting which is appropriate at this timing for each IP, such as ‘This is the best way to do this IP’. ‘Sonic’ is also SEGA’s signature IP, and in parallel with the new game, we are considering reboots and remakes.”
Seeings as a large chunk of the Twitter Sonic fanbase is fantasising over a Sonic Heroes remaster, it’s fair to say that Sugino’s proposal wouldn’t be an unwelcome one in the broader Sonic community. Many of the blue blur’s past works can no longer be purchased or accessed on modern hardware – the Sonic Adventure series and Sonic Unleashed are some key examples (although if you have an Xbox you can of course play these via backwards compatibility).
It would be great to see even the less-adored spinoffs like Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Rivals resurface, for preservation’s sake. What would be the kind of remakes, remasters or reboots you would like to see and why? Let us know in the comments section below.