Sonic Mania is heralded by many of the blue blur’s fans as one of the best Sonic games ever made. A sequel was a dream for many — more classic stages revamped, more brand new levels created, and those buttery smooth physics making a beautiful pixel art return. However, Sonic Mania 2 never happened, but we’ve got a clearer picture as to why.
In an interview with Game Informer — whose cover story is the next 2D Sonic game, Sonic Superstars — Sega’s Takashi Iizuka put to bed rumours of creative differences between Sonic Mania’s developer Headcannon, headed up by Christian Whitehead, and Sega. Iizuka says that Sega worked with Headcannon and Whitehead “to consider concepts for the next generation of Classic Sonic”, but the game never came to fruition.
The biggest aspect of this seems to be Sega’s desire to move beyond pixel art, with Iizuka addressing this specifically in the interview:
“When you make a 2D game using pixel art, you kind of end up targeting a very specific core audience… We wanted to bring this game to as many people as possible and in order to really make it look and feel as appealing to a wider audience, we needed to use the 3D assets to really give it that current look. But we do know that core fans want that old Classic Sonic look, they want that old classic Sonic feel, so we focused on making sure the controls were solid and the look and the feel was really representative of a classic Sonic game.”
Whitehead, also speaking to Game Informer, echoed this sentiment. The developer is now working on a brand new IP with his new studio Evening Star, Penny’s Big Breakaway, which is a 3D platformer. Whitehead too wanted to move away from the pixel art he’d been working with for so long:
“Evening Star did work with Sega to explore possible directions Classic Sonic could go after the success of Sonic Mania. Sonic Mania 2 was never in development, though, because we actually agreed early on that we should try to make something fresh, like hand-drawn 2D or 2.5D.”
Whitehead also reiterated that there’s no bad blood between Sega and the team at Evening star, stating that “we maintain a friendly relationship with Sega and hope fans are pumped to play both [Sonic Superstars and Penny’s Big Breakaway] once they release”.
While Whitehead and the team weren’t directly involved in the game, Iizuka is adamant that Sonic Superstars is a continuation of the feel of Sonic Mania. “When we kicked off Sonic Superstars with Ohshima-san’s team, a lot of the conversations that we had with Christian were already in our heads”, he tells Game Informer, and Sonic Mania’s success allowed them to think about the next generation of Classic Sonic: “Sonic Mania helped us realize that fans still wanted and enjoyed the Classic series.”
Sonic Mania is heralded by many of the blue blur’s fans as one of the best Sonic games ever made. A sequel was a dream for many — more classic stages revamped, more brand new levels created, and those buttery smooth physics making a beautiful pixel art return. However, Sonic Mania 2 never happened, but we’ve got a clearer picture as to why.
In an interview with Game Informer — whose cover story is the next 2D Sonic game, Sonic Superstars — Sega’s Takashi Iizuka put to bed rumours of creative differences between Sonic Mania’s developer Headcannon, headed up by Christian Whitehead, and Sega. Iizuka says that Sega worked with Headcannon and Whitehead “to consider concepts for the next generation of Classic Sonic”, but the game never came to fruition.
The biggest aspect of this seems to be Sega’s desire to move beyond pixel art, with Iizuka addressing this specifically in the interview:
“When you make a 2D game using pixel art, you kind of end up targeting a very specific core audience… We wanted to bring this game to as many people as possible and in order to really make it look and feel as appealing to a wider audience, we needed to use the 3D assets to really give it that current look. But we do know that core fans want that old Classic Sonic look, they want that old classic Sonic feel, so we focused on making sure the controls were solid and the look and the feel was really representative of a classic Sonic game.”
Whitehead, also speaking to Game Informer, echoed this sentiment. The developer is now working on a brand new IP with his new studio Evening Star, Penny’s Big Breakaway, which is a 3D platformer. Whitehead too wanted to move away from the pixel art he’d been working with for so long:
“Evening Star did work with Sega to explore possible directions Classic Sonic could go after the success of Sonic Mania. Sonic Mania 2 was never in development, though, because we actually agreed early on that we should try to make something fresh, like hand-drawn 2D or 2.5D.”
Whitehead also reiterated that there’s no bad blood between Sega and the team at Evening star, stating that “we maintain a friendly relationship with Sega and hope fans are pumped to play both [Sonic Superstars and Penny’s Big Breakaway] once they release”.
While Whitehead and the team weren’t directly involved in the game, Iizuka is adamant that Sonic Superstars is a continuation of the feel of Sonic Mania. “When we kicked off Sonic Superstars with Ohshima-san’s team, a lot of the conversations that we had with Christian were already in our heads”, he tells Game Informer, and Sonic Mania’s success allowed them to think about the next generation of Classic Sonic: “Sonic Mania helped us realize that fans still wanted and enjoyed the Classic series.”
