Whew! The news just keeps coming in. In case you somehow missed it, Sonic Boom was revealed a few days ago, a brand new extension of the Sonic franchise aimed at western audiences which includes a new game, television show and merchandise. A new interview with Bob Rafei (Big Red Button CEO) and Stephen Frost (SoA Producer) has revealed some further details into both the game and show.
Timmi T over on Sonic Retro has handily put into a brief summary for us all. I’ve bolded some more noteworthy points:
- Game started development in 2011, when SEGA approached Big Red Button.
- Big Red Button consists of people from Naughty Dog, High Impact Games (former Insomniac people who made the Ratchet games for PSP) and Heavy Iron Studios (known for the good Spongebob platformers and some licensed stuff)
- Worked together with Crytek to make Cryengine 3 display the game on the Wii U gamepad while also showing it on the TV in co-op.
- Game is mostly two-player co-op, with sometimes four players.
- If you play in single player you can switch between the characters (seemingly like in the LEGO games)
- Development was started before the Nintendo exclusivity deal. They say it made sense for it to eventually be on Nintendo platforms anyway (in other words, it started as a multiplatform game)
- Evan Baily is the showrunner for the TV show.
- They started working on it with a somber attitude, as broader media initiatives have a poor reputation. But as they worked together with Evan they were pleased to see that he’s a gamer as well. After they got together they had no more concerns.
- Before really working on the games they established base rules like what the world is, what the characters are going to be like etc.
- Big Red Button, SEGA and OuiDO (the animation studio producing Sonic Boom) shared ideas of what to add to both the game and cartoon.
- Stephen Frost (the producer of Sonic Boom) thinks they’re building a bigger Sonic world than they usually do.
- Stephen hopes to make more games set in the Boom world.
- Sonic Boom won’t replace the already existent Sonic, they see it more as a branch of the franchise.
- They hope to draw in new users while also trying to do something new for the Sonic franchise.
- They went through a lot of potential new designs for Sonic before eventually deciding on Scarf Sonic.
So it seems that Sonic Boom has been in the pipeline far even before the footage shown in the CryEngine 3 showcase – that’s a lot of development time. What’s more is the gameplay details. Are we looking at a Sonic Heroes hybrid type of game? The idea of having multiple characters on screen you can swap between certainly supports that idea, though we won’t know for certain until we get some clear footage of the game in motion.
And that’s it! If you missed anything in this hectic week, don’t worry, we have a Sum-Up Sunday article coming with all the details you might have missed. Until then, you can check out the full interview below. Special thanks again to TimmiT of Retro for the great summary.
It’s slowly but surely sounding more reminiscent of Heroes to me…
I doubt it will be, but I would love if the co-op could be over internet. Most of my friends are online, ha ha, so it’d be nice to go through the campaign/story/adventure mode (whatever you want to call it) with someone to have laughable fails.
So the game has been in production for a little over two years, most likely. And I’m glad that they are sharing information with the show too – we can see some linking there, then, and not as many inconsistencies. Something to keep an eye on.
I’m totally neutral on Sonic Boom. Not excited. Not upset.
But the co-op play is super appealing to me, but if it’s not online co-op, it’d be pretty useless to me… My friend that actually loved video games moved away, and my other gamer pals live far away from me so… the two that actually live here that’d play are pretty busy all the time so, I’d never really have anyone to play with. I’ll probably skip this game if it doesn’t have online co-op, I’d rather just watch the cartoon. XD
I’m more of a fan of the main franchise, was never really a spin off person. XD
But, I will give it a chance if it has online co-op, so please guys, make it online co-op, please please please…
why skip it if it doesnt have Online Co-op no other sonic game had online Co-Op did you skip them too?
bit silly skipping a game due to a tiny little factor when you havnt even seen how the game works properly.
I don’t want to support arguing, but you do have a point. Did he skip the other games since they didn’t have online multi-player?
I agree with you If they don’t have online for Sonic Boom games for Nintendo Wii U, or Nintendo 3DS I will be angry of how their going to cancelled of Sonic Boom Two Nintendo games consoles. Besides Sega fired Dimps of Sonic Lost World for Nintendo Wii U Nintendo 3DS was terrible after all my opinion about Sonic Lost World that I played it for Nintendo 3DS I kinda like it has online battle and online racing or online Special stages also it’s similar to Super Mario galaxy which I really hate it. ThenTails lab is cool about material and item then Rc Garget plane or helicopter, also UFO space ship from outer space it’s useless for Deadly six boss are more muscles and strong last two things is the Deadly six bosses were awesome they use life bar to damage quality! Then Special stage to do like superman flying to collect the orbs of 50 rings to giant ring was weird but good and also Super Sonic is super faster better than Wii U version of super sonic little bit fast to!
True, but it’s hard to buy a game if you are completely neutral to it. In that respect, I can see this caution – generally someone has to have some amount of interest to buy a game or even try it. It’s a valid concern over co-op too…I’m in the same exact boat with no friends to play it with ^^’ Granted I like to play for story too, he he.
But thanks for being respectful on this and not attacking. I approve of this sportsmanship! *Thumbs up* Now everybody hug! XD
HOW MUCH WERE THEY FRIGGIN’ HIDING FOR ALL THIS TIME?!
I’m impressed they were able to hide this at all. Sega isn’t exactly known for keeping secrets very well XD
I did a quick edit on how they could be fixed
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v141/Gween2/fixedboom_zps0900da2d.jpg
pass it on.
Not bad, I must admit. … … skin colored arms … … ..
Wow! That’s actually awesome. Knuckles proportions looks a hell of a lot better in your edit than in the actual concept art.
But you know what I have realized? I don’t give a f**k about the new designs as long as the game is good!
please dont say that, its better to have an A+ game and show than a A- game and show.
But, an A is still an A.
Hmmm… You’re one of THOSE types of people.
Heavy Iron studios! Those guys made SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom! That game is one of my favorite 3D games of all time! It’s about time Sonic and SpongeBob have some indirect connection. Man, This Sonic Boom thing just keeps getting better and better doesn’t it? 😀
Oh my. A co-op Sonic game like this sounds pretty fun! Switching through characters like this is also something I think will be beneficial. It was a concept I liked in Sonic Heroes, but the game just wasn’t executed as well as I hoped. This could honestly be a really cool Sonic game, from the looks of it. And given that there is a lot of development time under their belt, I am really hoping that SEGA is going to ensure a quality product.
But, there is one thing I am curious about with the co-op. Anyone else wondering why sometimes it will be 2-player, and why sometimes it will be 4-player? Could this mean our heroes get separated, perhaps? Or maybe most of the time, you simply choose two characters you want to play as.
I’m liking this game more and more with new tidbit of news I read about it.
To think that it would take someone else but Sonicteam and Dimps to make me interested in a Sonic game again.
Finally they found a way to make the friends playable in a way that won’t feel tedious. Hopefully a more polished version of Sonic Heroes.
ah – i can have my Tails/Amy team from Advance 3 again :3
but this changing between charaters sounds fun ~
This actually sounds quite fun. I’m optimistic about Insomniac people working on it as they wrote some fantastic video game scripts for Spyro back in the day (in Spyro 3 they even snuck in a Sonic reference)