While some of its other franchises such as Yakuza and Streets of Rage have seen recent successes, 2020 has once again proven that Sega's most popular franchise is still Sonic the Hedgehog, thanks to the roaring success of his debut film. While the Sonic the Hedgehog movie left both hardcore and casual fans with a fresh new take on the ever-changing franchise, many have still been waiting with baited breath for the announcement of the next title in the iconic characters' almost 30 year old video game franchise.
While Sega has not indicated what direction the franchise will be heading next, the developer has taken multiple opportunities in 2020 to remind fans that it will be taking better care of the franchise moving forward. Thankfully the series saw a resurgence thanks to 2017's stellar Sonic Mania and its 2018 expansion Sonic Mania Plus, which returned to the classic 2D platforming style of the original Sega Genesis titles.
Speaking to website Otaquest, Sonic the Hedgehog series producer Takashi Iizuka took the opportunity to once more remind fans that Sonic Team is taking the development of the next titles very seriously. When asked how Sonic Team is handling developing two distinct styles of Sonic games, Iizuka stated "Not much time has passed since the distinction between classic and modern was made, in fact, it was since 2011’s Sonic Generations title. Even before that, in addition to the main 3D series, there was a high demand for the 2D action games such as the Sonic Advance series, so we revived the old Sonic as Classic Sonic for the 20th-anniversary title, Sonic Generations. We initially thought that it would be a 20th Anniversary project only, however after that we had a strong demand for a new classic Sonic standalone title, that became 2017’s Sonic Mania. We would like to take good care of these two very popular iterations of Sonic’s in the future."
Earlier this year Sega was set to host another Sonic the Hedgehog focused panel at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas where it intended to announce the next entry in the Sonic franchise, this was cancelled however when the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Sega had initially intended to also make new Sonic-related announcements on the 20th day of every month in 2020, which it dubbed "The Sonic 2020 Initiative," this was also cancelled, as the team is waiting until a later date to announce the next title.
Source: Otaquest