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On this day ten years ago, in a glitzy media space in New York, the world was introduced to Sonic Boom, a brand new branch of the long-running Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. With branded games, comics, cartoons, many merchandising and licensing deals and a lot of marketing budget behind it, this was intended to be an all-encompassing cross-media initiative that sought to revitalise the blue blur for a new generation of kids. The 6 Feb 2014 event was billed as a “renaissance” that would kick off the “Year of Sonic” - but instead it would become the day that marked the beginning of a long, lost decade for the franchise. The colossal failure of Wii U exclusive ‘Rise of Lyric’ left fans with next-to-nothing to play for several years, as SEGA scrambled to rescue its most-treasured IP with rushed projects and outsourced works that leant heavily on the brand’s “legacy” - something that the company had just tried so desperately to move away from. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. At this time, ten years ago, there was no such panic within SEGA, and not nearly as much consternation from the fanbase. The community reaction, in fact, was one of stunned curiosity. The reveal of Sonic Boom was incredibly surprising at the time - not least because of the unique redesigns that Sonic and friends were rocking. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy all came with brand new kicks and accessories (including an industrial amount of sports tape), and proportions were tweaked to varying degrees (Sonic got taller, while Knuckles got… bigger? In the… chest?) in order to make them look contemporary for a Western (read: US) audience. Also fascinating was the gung-ho effort by SEGA America to fully commit to a trans-media offering for the Sonic franchise. The blue blur has made - and will continue to make - appearances across all manner of different media, obviously, but Sonic Boom would be the first time that a consistent universe would carry across branded games, comics, TV and potentially even movies. US developers Big Red Button and Sanzaru Games were tapped by SEGA to develop the first set of video games in this new world, and no expense was spared in getting these projects off the ground - with headliner ‘Rise of Lyric’ reportedly assigned some $20 million in budget. While fans were having a time trying to adjust to this bold new direction for the franchise, it at least could be said that the Wii U exclusive was looking incredibly good in its initial reveal, with the game reportedly running a version of CryEngine 3 specifically made for Nintendo’s cursed console. On the very same day, a trailer for a branded TV series was also revealed (and it would be this arm of the sub-franchise that would ultimately stand the test of time, with a successful comedy angle for the show and writing that got increasingly great [and weird] across the two seasons that followed) as well as a range of tie-in merchandise in partnership with TOMY. Indeed, Sonic Boom was ripe for the licensing, with SEGA America fully intending to rightfully milk that cow until the end of time with many, many more partnerships confirmed over the course of the next year. Of course, as we all know now, during the rather chaotic year that was 2014 things started to quickly fall apart. Impressions of Rise of Lyric at E3 were not super positive, with the realisation that Sonic’s design wasn’t the only factor where Boom had deviated from its SEGASonic (or “legacy”) counterpart. Gameplay appeared to follow a rather generic ‘Western action-platformer’ formula, with weird ‘Enerbeam’ swinging gimmicks in place of a traditional Sonic moveset and a focus on character-swapping and puzzles over high-speed action. It later transpired that the Wii U was not quite powerful enough to onboard the aforementioned CryEngine 3 tech either, so graphics and game features ended up taking a nosedive over the months leading up to release. The game, which was a key factor in Sonic Boom’s overall brand success, crashed and burned by the time the review embargoes lifted (you can read our review on our archive site here, but other media outlets were much less kind to it). Add to that an associated title on Nintendo 3DS, ‘Shattered Crystal’, that suffered similar negative feedback, and you had a verified disaster in the midst of a new IP’s flagship year. The fallout was so bad that in the fiscal quarter that followed, SEGA sheepishly reported to investors that the Sonic Boom games were among the worst-selling Sonic titles in the entire franchise’s history. Unfortunately, once the games themselves proved to be duds, the rest of the cross-media initiative came crumbling down. An Archie Comics book was announced in July 2014, and ran for only eleven issues before being cancelled. The toys would continue for a little while longer - likely owing to licensing contractual obligations - but it never reached the heights that SEGA America intended, with in-store concepts discovered in 2015 that suggested a complete Sonic takeover of toy stores had the Sonic Boom series become successful. About the only thing that remained by the end of it all was the Sonic Boom CG animated series, which was beloved by the community and won itself a second season before its time was up. That premiered in late 2016, alongside the third and final video game in the Sonic Boom franchise (if you don’t count the branded Sonic Dash sequel that SEGA HARDlight released a year prior), titled “Fire & Ice” (which itself was delayed a full year from its original intended release of 2015). It was a sad run for an ambitious “sub-franchise”. But, while SEGA reps went to great lengths back in 2014 to insist that Sonic Boom was not intended to ‘replace’ the old Sonic continuity, there were signs that in practice this may not have been entirely true. For the three years that followed, the Sonic Team studio took a back seat from practically all association with Sonic the Hedgehog, with its release schedule limited to mobile spinoff Sonic Runners (which, while interesting, only lasted a year with SEGA calling the project a total failure). The lack of any viable options from the “other branches” of the Sonic franchise, coupled with the share of voice Sonic Boom enjoyed, meant that SEGA America’s pet project was inevitably the de-facto “new face” of the IP, despite comments to the contrary. In reality, Sonic Boom was not just “a new direction” as told by producer Stephen Frost, but “the new direction”, with non-Sonic Boom branches openly considered as part of the franchise's “heritage” instead. Perhaps most telling of this point of view came from comments made by then-SEGA producer Omar Woodley back in mid-2015: Indeed, until 2017 if you weren’t interested in Sonic Boom there was simply nothing interesting to play. In the gaming world, Sonic was in the doldrums. In fact, for years the Sonic social media team had the unenviable task of carrying the entire marketing for the brand, distracting a bored community with nothing but memes (a frankly herculean task that was nonetheless executed so masterfully that the Twitter account ended up growing to millions of followers) until SEGA could action a fallback strategy. The focus on Sonic Boom (along with the subsequent lack of high profile Sonic Team projects in tandem) and its resulting failure led to SEGA America taking the unfortunate decision to downsize, restructure and relocate its Western business, and the company did not showcase or announce any new titles at E3 in 2015. Later that year, SEGA Games CEO Haruki Satomi even stated that the company had "betrayed" its fans: SEGA Europe’s Jon Rooke added that; “SEGA has publicly apologised to the fans as the quality of console games in the Sonic franchise hasn’t been acceptable over recent years.” Whatever was going on, it clearly seemed that SEGA felt like it needed to engage in damage control. In 2016, Takashi Iizuka spoke up about the future of the franchise, and talked up the possibility of Sonic Team making a comeback. The years that followed brought us Sonic Forces - which despite a reported long development time gave the impression that it was rushed to fill a void left by the collapse of Sonic Boom - and Sonic Mania, a critically-acclaimed title that in spite of its honors was a project outsourced to indie developers. Arguably, it would not be until 2020 - six years after the announcement of Sonic Boom - that the Sonic franchise would start to pick itself back up. The advent of the surprisingly-fantastic Sonic the Hedgehog feature film from Paramount Pictures restored a lot of energy and good will for the IP and within the community, and ironically brought Sonic to the new and extended audiences that SEGA America originally intended to reach with Sonic Boom. In 2022, nearly nine years on from the New York reveal, Sonic Team returned to the fore with a new concept in Sonic Frontiers. And the consensus on this seems to be that, while it is rough around the edges, its approach has great potential and could flourish in a follow-up with the right design direction. It truly feels that now, a full ten years on - and thanks to a lot of hard work from SEGA, Sonic Team and the Sonic Brand team - there is a lot to be positive about with this franchise, with plenty of interesting and exciting new games and projects on the way. But with all that said, is it right to say that Sonic Boom was a complete and total failure? No, I don’t think so. For all of its faults, the sub-brand did do a number of things right. For one thing, the Sonic Boom cartoon remains a favourite for many this day, with fans often mourning the casual and quiet non-renewal of the series. Producer Stephen Frost also concluded that Sonic Boom in general was a success from a licensing and brand awareness perspective, which cannot really be argued when you remember the long-lasting line of toys and merchandise that kept Sonic in the mainstream’s consciousness. And it was ahead of its time in terms of helping SEGA understand Sonic’s prominence in the West as opposed to Japan, with Iizuka moving to the US in 2016 and establishing the Sonic Brand team out of SEGA America’s offices, where a good majority of brand decisions are now made. A lot has been written about how Sonic Boom fared and where it may have gone wrong over the years, but one thing is for certain - its reveal and its ambition was most definitely interesting. How do you feel about the overall series, ten years on? And what are your fondest/"fondest" memories of Sonic Boom? Happy 10th Anniversary, Sonic Boom (the franchise)! View full story

For the US, today is Sonic 3 and Knuckles' 30th Anniversary, so we got a quick collection of Classic Knuckles from the game

Want to feel old? On this day, twenty-five years ago, the original Sonic Adventure launched in Japan alongside the Sega Dreamcast. SEGA representatives and fans alike have been celebrating the occasion on social media today, with SEGA Japan's official channel sharing a video of the game's iconic intro sequence featuring Crush 40's 'Open Your Heart'. Sonic Team Creative Director Kazuyuki Hoshino opted to post a photo of the himself wearing a silly Sonic hat in celebration of the game's release back in the day. Sonic Adventure was a legendary Sonic the Hedgehog game - and a legendary SEGA game - for many, many reasons. And on a personal level, it's arguably the game that re-ignited my fandom for the Sonic series, leading me to explore online communities and eventually create a website called The Sonic Stadium. Sonic Adventure was one of the first reviews I ever wrote for this site. Reminisce with us here on TSS your favourite memories of the game, and follow the Events calendar event below to be reminded of its anniversary when next year rolls around too. Original Post Content: View full story

It's officially been one full year now since Sonic Frontiers released (November 8th 2022), and throughout the months, it's a understatement to say a lot has changed about the game. Not just with the usual feelings that can change when a honeymoon phase with a brand new game ends, but quite literally, as Sonic Frontiers is the first mainline game in the series to get frequent and substantial content drops that significantly altered aspects and elements of the game, for better or worse. There's now a new barrage of costumes for Sonic to wear within the game. There's new challenges for Sonic to run though. There's the complete overhaul of the memory tokens from refreshable collectibles that were dime a dozen now turned into a full-scale collectable required for island completion. There's a unlockable spindash that breaks most of the game in half, yet is necessary for a certain update. There's now full-on island completion requirements. There's even three full brand new characters who haven't been playable in a 3D space for over 15 years. There's also of course the Final Horizons DLC that it of itself is only just over a month old at this point, adding in the adforementioned three additional characters, a brand new ending, and a heap of more content than anything could really reasonably expect from a free update, again for better or worse. We've already begun to see the lasting impact Frontiers will have on the series, with characters like Sage appearing in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog earlier this year, and the new ending in Final Horizons very much solidifying that. We even have what may be our first appearance of a Modern character within the Classic series in literal years - as The End made a cameo in Sonic Superstars just last month. With the game seemingly now in it's most complete form following the Final Horizons update, the impact of Frontiers' additions, both lore wise and gameplay wise starting to become more evident as time goes on, and a chance for the dust to settle following the release of the game, and following the release of the Final Horizons update, now seems as good a time as any to ask - what is your thoughts on Frontiers now that a year has passed? Has your impressions remained the exact same since launch? Have they changed now that the honeymoon period is over and you've had a chance to more closely consider the game? Has the updates' many changes changed your opinion on the game any? Has Final Frontiers left you delighted, or given the game a rather untasteful cap off after all was said and done? Either way, here's to the one year anniversary of what is most probably the biggest game in the series in a very, very long while, and for a lot of different reasons. It's hard to believe that Frontiers is a year old already, and a brand new Sonic game has already come out to take the title as the most recent release.

It feels like a lifetime ago, but way back in the early 2000s, the Sonic Team studio was known for more than just Sonic the Hedgehog. And yesterday was the 20th anniversary of one such non-Sonic title - Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. Former Sonic Team developer Satoshi Okano took to Twitter yesterday to celebrate the anniversary of the Japanese release of the game with a short message; "This is a very nostalgic job. The Sonic team at this time was really innovative, such as Burning Rangers, Modern Sonic, Samba DE Amigo, Giant Egg . I'm honored to have worked on those projects. HBD for 20th Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg." Released for the Nintendo Gamecube in 2003, Billy Hatcher was one of the last original games that Sonic Team would develop before becoming known exclusively as a Sonic production house. In it, you control a young boy with egg-rolling powers, transported to a land of chickens and tasked with rescuing the inhabitants from an army of crow-controlled bad guys. It was a bit wonky in places, but we loved it when it released - you can read our old-school review from 2003 right here. The game launched in Japan on October 9 (yesterday), but it actually released in the US much earlier, on September 23. In PAL markets, the game arrived on October 31. Ah, the good old days of staggered global release days, eh? We certainly don't miss it. We're big fans of Sonic Team's more original games though - did you ever play Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg? Any fond memories? Let us know in the comments section below! Original Post Content: View full story

IDW shared a surprise announcement during its SDCC 2023 Sonic the Hedgehog panel - a celebration of Fang and Knuckles in a one-shot anniversary special, planned for release next year! The reveal was made courtesy of the below photo, which was taken by SDCC 2023 reporter 'FloofToon15' for Twitter account 'IDWSonicNews', shows a teaser image of what to expect - featuring silhouettes of Fang the Hunter (as he's now known we guess) and Knuckles the Echidna, alongside a red '30th' logo. As 2024 would mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Sonic 3 and Sonic Triple Trouble video games (in which Knuckles and Fang debuted respectively), it's clear that this is going to be a very special comic indeed. No other details were revealed about this particular match-up, although if it follows IDW's previous anniversary one-shot for Amy Rose and Metal Sonic we could see a story that could pair the two characters up together in an interesting new adventure. We certainly can't wait to learn more! via IDWSonicNews (Twitter) Sonic News Tips Credit: Shiny Gems Original Post Content: View full story

It's hard to believe that THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO today, the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game arrived on store shelves. And since then, the heroic blue blur has catapulted himself to super-stardom, appearing on everything from comics to TV shows and movies, to coffee cups and t-shirts and a whole lot more! SEGA's mascot has had the kind of celebrity life that many can only dream of: the dizzying highs of 'Sonic Mania' in the early 1990s; the crushing lows of 'Sonic 2006' in... well, 2006; a series of make-overs and interesting fashion choices; the always-classic "five year lull"; and a comeback story that celebrates both his retro early successes (Sonic Origins, Sonic Superstars) alongside his more Adventure-ous contemporary works (Sonic Colours Ultimate, Sonic Frontiers). If any character proved that they can truly stand the test of time, Sonic the Hedgehog is that guy. Several times. To celebrate, SEGA shared an incredible fan art piece today by Serxx - you can see it below and catch the original SEGA post here. We'll be updating Sonic News throughout the day with cool things that the official Sonic channels have done to pay homage to the blue blur on this day. How will you be celebrating? A little bit of Sonic Adventure 2? Reading the latest IDW Sonic issues? Watching the Sonic 2 movie? Let us know in the comments below! Oh, and don't forget - today is also the day SEGA hosts its annual 'Sonic Central' showcase, which is bound to include a number of interesting surprises. Catch the Event page for the livestream below, and bookmark it so you don't forget! Happy birthday, Sonic! View full story

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary for Sonic Dash, SEGA HARDlight’s long running mobile action game. Team celebrated on Twitter, showing off an adorable Green Hill cake. Sonic Dash launched in 2013 in an era shortly after mobile gaming’s early key players had established themselves, when the iPhone 5 was still fresh and new, and Android/Windows store releases didn’t quite have day-and-date parody yet. At launch, Sonic Dash was above all an arcade score attack game with only Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose playable. Across the decade, Dash would balloon in its cast and features, adding dozens of new characters and skins, a new boss, new locations, an animal-collecting metagame, regular special events, and cross-promotional collaborations. The game blossomed into a number of spin-offs and sequels, like Apple Arcade’s Sonic Dash+, the arcade machine Sonic Dash Extreme, and the short-lived Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom based on the Sonic Boom game and cartoon series. However, it’s most notable heir is Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, a game that turned Dash’s lane-based dodging and collecting into intense multiplayer races with frequent updates (and heavier monetization). The legacy of Sonic Dash will ultimately be that it was the first truly big Sonic mobile game. While we older players might have dabbled in various ports and mini-games on our Nokia flip phones, nothing released prior had quite the same satisfaction or responsiveness as a lengthy run through Seaside Hill. It was, and still is, the mobile game that most effectively captures the whimsy and pace of Sonic, but in a tight, simple, uncomplicated package. …even when it throws some COMPLETE AND ABSOLUTE [expletive] that I had no way to react to three minutes into my otherwise perfect run, and now I have to start a new run to get the rings I need to boost Cream up to max level, but that’s okay because I can get more tokens near the start anyway, and if I use Blaze, that’ll help me get the Pockys I need to unlock– Sonic News Tips Credit: Sonictrainer Original Post Content: View full story

It's that time of year again! October 24 is The Sonic Stadium's birthday, and today we have been running non-stop for 22 YEARS. That's an incredible milestone for any community site to achieve, let alone a community dedicated to Sonic the Hedgehog! I say this every year, but it always stuns me how far this site has come, from humble beginnings back in the Year 2000 to the present day, where we have become the first and best place for Sonic fans to visit for the latest news, reviews, interviews and community activity. We've been lucky enough to get face-time with the legendary developers behind the Sonic games, and represent the online Sonic the Hedgehog fanbase to SEGA directly. That's not forgetting live events such as the Summer of Sonic convention! We've done an awful lot in the last two decades +2, so to celebrate I thought it would be fun to revisit a few stories from yesteryear that have stood the test of time and have become our favourites. We posted these on our social media accounts as well today, but I wanted to share the fun with you all here as well. Let us know what you remember of these events and whether you were reading TSS at the time! 10th Anniversary Hype To kick things off, let’s go REALLY old-school with one of our very first features - catch-up coverage of the latest juicy details of Sonic Adventure 2, as reported by a 15-year-old me - @Dreadknux! A Trip to SEGA HQ Fast-forward to 2005, as the Sonic Stadium hosted a special ‘Shadow Week’ to celebrate the launch of Shadow the Hedgehog, and sent the winner of a contest to SEGA UK HQ for the day! We wrote a nice (weird) story about it. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2005/12/when-kieran-met-sega/ A Champion of Fan Gaming Walking back a bit to 2003, and an example of our long and storied history in covering the Sonic Amateur Games Expo! We have been all over the show since 2001, but we liked our coverage of SAGE 7 for some reason so we’re focusing on that one here. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2003/09/sage-7-complete-coverage/ Sayonara Yuji Naka Now for some juicy retro news: we were there when all the big stories happened. One huge story that comes to mind was Yuji Naka's shock departure from Sonic Team in 2006, months before the release of Sonic The Hedgehog on Xbox 360 and PS3. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2006/05/yuji-naka-leaves-sonic-team/ Sony's Too Slow Sometimes the news stories evolve at a pace that would break Sonic's speedy little mind. Take this classic news story from 2013(!!) outlining the first rumbles of a Sonic Movie... back then the rights was in the hands of Sony Pictures. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2013/12/sony-pictures-have-registered-3-sonic-the-hedgehog-movie-domains/ Two Bitter Rivals Unite There were rumours of Mario and Sonic teaming up as far back as 2001 (and we reported on that as well at the time), but it wasn't until 2007 where we finally got confirmation that the plumber and 'hog were putting their 1990s differences aside! https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2007/04/sonic-and-mario-finally-in-cahoots/ Boom Goes the Hedgehog Then in February of 2014... a BIG change-up was announced in the Sonic franchise. Most of us remember where we were at the time the Sonic Boom multi-media series was revealed. Where were you? https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2014/02/sonic-boom-announced-for-wii-u-and-3ds/ The Dream is Dead Yanking ourselves all the way back to 2001 for what was perhaps Dreadknux's SADDEST big story covered on TSS. We're not even going to say it, it'll make us too upset. Still not over it. Look How They Massacred My Boy Another big story came in 2019 when, after years of rumours, we finally caught a glimpse of the Sonic Movie. And everyone HATED it. We covered the community reaction at the time. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2019/03/just-give-him-gloves-the-sonic-community-reacts-to-the-sonic-movie-design/ It's Shadow the Hedgehog, Baby There has been a LOT of downright WEIRDNESS in the Sonic franchise over the years as well. One of our favourites is probably this story about Japanese pop group m-flo collaborating with SEGA for the release of Shadow the Hedgehog in 2005. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2005/10/m-flo-loves-shadow-the-hedgehog-japanese-pop-group-collaborate-on-new-game-with-sega/ Miracle! Magical! Sonical! What about this promotional trailer for Sonic Advance? The blue blur's first ever step onto competitive non-SEGA hardware (especially Nintendo's) was HUGE news at the time, buffered (or enhanced?) a little by this bizarre JP commercial. Name's No Good Then there's the 2009 story of a Norwegian boy who wrote to his king to request a name change to 'Sonic X'. It was denied. He was very sad. To be honest, Norway's king kind of did him a favour in retrospect. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2009/04/kid-denied-name-change-of-‘sonic-x’-by-norwegian-king/ The Egg Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree We're going to round this off with some of our all-time favourite stories! First of all, this hilarious case of mistaken identity in Sonic Mania, which led to the community creating a new character Eggette/Omelette! Super Special Sonic Summer Squad Another of our favourites actually involves a legendary side-project of ours, Summer of Sonic. We hosted the last major Sonic convention in 2016, with big names like Jun Senoue, Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka, Tyson Hesse and more guest-starring! Our Report: https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2016/08/my-day-at-summer-of-sonic-2016/ The Ride of Your Life In 2010, UK theme park Alton Towers opened a Sonic rollercoaster (which doubled as the accidental reveal of Roger Craig Smith as the new voice of Sonic) as well as a themed hotel room. We visited and stayed in that room, and it was crazy and epic. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2010/02/alton-towers-the-sonic-suite/ Crushin' 40 All The Time 2010 was also the year we were able to speak directly to the legendary Jun Senoue on his career as a musician and sound director for the Sonic series. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2010/02/the-jun-senoue-interview-part-one/ Sonic ga Daisuke Desu Dreadknux was also lucky enough to go to Tokyo Game Show back in 2007, and was one of the first to play Sonic Rush Adventure on Nintendo DS ahead of release. He also met possibly the best Guy-in-a-Sonic-Costume ever on the show floor. https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2007/09/nice-to-meet-you-sir-your-name/ Sonic the Hedgehog REMIX We'll finish up our retrospective with this, our SSMB-crafted Sonic remix album. The Sonic Stadium Music Album 2011 kicked off a series of amazing remix albums from the Sonic community and are well worth listening to today! https://archive.sonicstadium.org/2012/02/tss-community-release-the-sonic-stadium-music-album-2011/ More Celebrations to Come! Rest assured that we'll be celebrating our anniversary with some more cool new things over the next week or so, but in the meantime why not reminisce with us? SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED in the 22 years we've been around, there's bound to be some big news we haven't covered above. Share your favourite memories, coverage and more and we'll catch you up on what we have cooking very soon! Happy Birthday to The Sonic Stadium! View full story