Sonic 30th predictions

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

I was going to post this in the other thread but it's not 2019 anymore.

What do you see as the most likely new entries for Sonic by 2021? In other words, predict (based on the loads on evidence we have now ) what direction you really think the next title(s) will go in.

For me, I'll do this in ascending order:

 

3) Sonic Forces Sequel: Forces was released to mediocre reviews and many diehard fans didnt seem to like it at all. However, it seemed to do okay with sales. Whatever ST has been working on, if development started last year I dont think they would be building something from scratch unless they had a lot of confidence. I think they might prefer to iterate on the things that have worked for them recently, including some elements of Forces which were received positively and just refine further.

2) Sonic Adventure remake: SEGA knows its diehard fans of the 2000s era have been wanting some more adventure love for a long time now. Sonic Adventure was an impressive debut back in 1998 and though it aged poorly, many of Sonics competitors have been remaking games lately. The conditions are ripe to try this formula again and refine its rougher parts. Iizuka has also expressed interest in this and said he would revisit the style of game when interest climbed high enough. I do not, however, think there is likely to be a game called Sonic Adventure 3. Definitely not now.

1) An all new 3D title: After the success of Mania, ST were shocked to see how successful the original formula still was. The games was the most popular release in 20 years and had them investigating why it did so well and how they could incorporate elements of it in their next 3D title (I forgot the exact interview but they have clearly been watching the success of Mania). I think they will actually try another reboot of 3D Sonic, probably not in a major way like Boom, but I do think they will try to reintroduce that style to 3D in some capacity....a new era so to speak with a different style. I also think they will try to incorporate some elements from Sonic Adventure. I dont know the marketing angle but it could be a way to move forward with just one Sonic in a major 3D title. If Mania gets a sequel it will probably follow this title in close proximity. I also suspect theyve wanted to do this for years now but they didnt have their ideas worked out fully and released Forces instead.

I think we'll start to hear about the direction, whatever it is, sometime this spring.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Can you replace whole topic with "Mania 2 in 2021" and we can all go home?

Sega is already pretty stupid, not releasing actually good game to go with a movie. But at least Hesse was needed for the film.

Keeping it longer would just be mental.

[blueblur98]

new mainline and new merchandise are practically guaranteed, new animated shorts are possible (more likely if the new mainline is in 2021)

[Roger_van_der_weide]

My prediction is be that Sonic Team has an entirely new alien aproach to the gameplay, world and characterization of the Sonic series that comes out of nowhere.
And then to "appease" the fans, they will throw darts at the Magical Formula's (Green hill zone, classic Sonic, Shadow, Wisps Etc.) that all Sonic fans love. Whichever they hit (Possibly all of them) will be blindly shoved into their weird alien game with zero understanding, context or respect for any of em.

And I'm 90% sure something Sonic adventure esque is coming, the winds are clearly blowing in that direction. But whatever it is, it'd be a Sonic 4 type of deal, brainless surface level fanservice with none of the machinery that makes it tick.
Especially the rumor of a Free-To-Play Chao garden mobile phone game makes too much sense not to happen.

If a Sonic Mania 2 is coming, it won't be the under the radar little fangame the first game was, this time it'll have the suits of Sega heavily breathing down their necks. So I expect a lot of "Improvements" to the Mania formula that'll drain everything I liked about the first one away.

Boy, I'm cynical. I wonder why.
At least I'll expect the music to be good.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

5 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

My prediction is be that Sonic Team has an entirely new alien aproach to the gameplay, world and characterization of the Sonic series that comes out of nowhere.
And then to "appease" the fans, they will throw darts at the Magical Formula's (Green hill zone, classic Sonic, Shadow, Wisps Etc.) that all Sonic fans love. Whichever they hit (Possibly all of them) will be blindly shoved into their weird alien game with zero understanding, context or respect for any of em.

And I'm 90% sure something Sonic adventure esque is coming, the winds are clearly blowing in that direction. But whatever it is, it'd be a Sonic 4 type of deal, brainless surface level fanservice with none of the machinery that makes it tick.
Especially the rumor of a Free-To-Play Chao garden mobile phone game makes too much sense not to happen.

If a Sonic Mania 2 is coming, it won't be the under the radar little fangame the first game was, this time it'll have the suits of Sega heavily breathing down their necks. So I expect a lot of "Improvements" to the Mania formula that'll drain everything I liked about the first one away.

Boy, I'm cynical. I wonder why.
At least I'll expect the music to be good.

You definitely are cynical.

I guess we'll see. I'm personally rooting for "Sonic Team", since SEGA of America has seemed to take control of the franchise very recently. We may see something positive for our blue boy just yet. If Mania hadnt happened in 2017 I would have given up hope. But we have that and now seemingly different leadership. 

I think something new is what's best for the franchise actually. The old 3D formulas have not worked in totality. All of them have major problems. I would like to see a 3D formula that actually nails it for once. If it doesnt happen this time under new management and following Mania, when they clearly have inspiration to follow, perhaps it never will.

[Plasme]

I'm actually very unsure Mania devs will be brought back.

We know Stealth hasn't got a contract and is broke. The rest of the team formed Evening Star and are almost certainly working on their own project. 

It's possible SEGA gets in touch with them but it's not looking like they are in a hurry or have much desire to do so. They don't have a history of making good, logical decisions.

I'm actually pretty angry about how Team Mania were contracted then not offered permanent jobs. Pretty scummy.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

5 hours ago, Plasme said:

I'm actually very unsure Mania devs will be brought back.

We know Stealth hasn't got a contract and is broke. The rest of the team formed Evening Star and are almost certainly working on their own project. 

It's possible SEGA gets in touch with them but it's not looking like they are in a hurry or have much desire to do so. They don't have a history of making good, logical decisions.

I'm actually pretty angry about how Team Mania were contracted then not offered permanent jobs. Pretty scummy.

I guess we dont know what happened but I have noticed that Whitehead has still been lurking around ST. Not sure what that means or if he's had any real involvement since, but I cant imagine anyone being stupid enough to dismiss the success of Mania and just carry on as usual. Maybe they aren't going to absorb them all, which I can understand, but clearly they have respect and continued interest in Whitehead. Hes already been a partner of theirs for years. 

[Plasme]

On 2/28/2020 at 3:10 PM, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

I guess we dont know what happened but I have noticed that Whitehead has still been lurking around ST. Not sure what that means or if he's had any real involvement since, but I cant imagine anyone being stupid enough to dismiss the success of Mania and just carry on as usual. Maybe they aren't going to absorb them all, which I can understand, but clearly they have respect and continued interest in Whitehead. Hes already been a partner of theirs for years. 

I think SEGA are very capable of being that stupid.

Consider how they completely left SEGA All Stars Racing Transformed behind and made no sequels for it after it was the most successful SEGA game both critically and commercially of that year. 

[KHCast]

Given the trend of remade iconic retro games (Spyro, Crash, Medieval being the most notable), I think it’s only a matter of time before Sega try jumping on that gravy train. They’re stupid a lot of times, but Idk, this doesn’t seem like something they’d be that boneheaded about, especially when they know so many want remakes or a numbered sequel. It’s easy money. The stars are literally aligned for them so well that they’d have to purposely miss this chance just for the sake of it.

Granted, they’d likely have modernize A LOT of both of the games, more than Spyro and Crash which still had fairly decent bases to build off even by today’s standards, and there’s no guarantee they’d be good games considering the team that’d be behind it likely, but at this point, I don’t think there’s much to loose, and it’s be a good way to gauge interest and see if it’d be viable to continue in that direction Adventure fans have been wanting for so long. It’s the best time to attempt it in any case. 
 

Either that or some attempt by Sonic Team themselves to continue off Mania’s success if they can’t get that team back.

[Wildcat]

I’d like to get another Gems style collection. Not as the only Anniversary game but as part of the whole thing. Include SegaSonic, Sonic 4, Knuckles Chaotix and some other obscure stuff like those old mobile games.

I know people aren’t asking for these games, except SegaSonic probably, but the point of Gems was to release those obscure/non mainstream games for the novelty of it. I think these all fit that category.

[VO.SUPER]

I can't confirm this, since I'm not on Linkedin, but this is apparently Warren Graff's current status. If someone could confirm this, I'd say this is an interesting talking point. 

[Wraith]

Can confirm that is indeed what it says.

 

[expansivelovestories]

That is a significant development; I looked to see if there is any discussion at all about it on the Sonic Retro forum or twitter and there doesn't seem to be, which is probably much better than if it became big news, in case Mr. Graff (and perhaps also Pontac?) is feeling bittersweet to have completed his time with the series!

This does make it seem a lot more like a new era of Sonic will happen!!  That is the weirdly wonderful thing about the boost games era, it literally leaves a lot of ground yet to be covered..!! 

[Zaysho]

Would anyone know what the previous listings for their work history looked like? I'm a bit skeptical that Sega would bother changing course on the writing direction, and as far as I know, Pontac and Graff were essentially freelancers. Would older listings have had them as "2010 to present" or would it just have 2010 to the latest year they worked on a Sonic game?

I mean, at this point I wouldn't exactly be upset if they weren't working on the series anymore, but the problem with the series' story/writing direction is still on Sonic Team. Replacing the guys who punched up the English script with bad jokes isn't much of a step forward, assuming they are being replaced at all.

[Gotta Go Rational]

We should remember that even if Pontaff have listed that they’re not currently involved with SEGA anymore, it doesn’t necessarily mean that future games won’t feature their writing. Given that according to that info, they presumably starting writing for Colours 1 ¼  years before its release, it’s not unfeasible to think that they were working on stuff beyond Team Sonic Racing too, considering they apparently were still involved with SEGA 5 months after its release.

[Johnster4]

Whoever the future Sonic writers are they need to work with not only the Japanese writers but also the storyboard artist to improve the English script for future Sonic games going forward.

[Razule]

Mike Pollock made this point:

Might be too quick to assume that it definitely means they'll no longer be writing for SEGA. If the next game comes out in 2021, they wouldn't start writing it until this year. And would it even be listed anyway if the game hadn't been revealed yet?

[Betz]

43 minutes ago, Razule said:

Mike Pollock made this point:

Might be too quick to assume that it definitely means they'll no longer be writing for SEGA. If the next game comes out in 2021, they wouldn't start writing it until this year. And would it even be listed anyway if the game hadn't been revealed yet?

I'd like to note that it says October 2019. Meaning that it's very recent that he recently worked with Sega. Which should more than likely show that the new Sonic game's script is complete. Could it mean a 2020 release like people are speculating?

[Razule]

33 minutes ago, Betz said:

I'd like to note that it says October 2019. Meaning that it's very recent that he recently worked with Sega. Which should more than likely show that the new Sonic game's script is complete. Could it mean a 2020 release like people are speculating?

Wasn't it said that the next "big year" would be 2021? If 2021's the next mainline game, maybe that rumored Adventure remake comes out this year.

[Betz]

6 hours ago, Razule said:

Wasn't it said that the next "big year" would be 2021? If 2021's the next mainline game, maybe that rumored Adventure remake comes out this year.

I don't know why theyd rewrite adventure, all the lines seem solid enough.

[Razule]

5 hours ago, Betz said:

I don't know why theyd rewrite adventure, all the lines seem solid enough.

Re-localizing the original Japanese script.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

12 hours ago, Razule said:

Wasn't it said that the next "big year" would be 2021? If 2021's the next mainline game, maybe that rumored Adventure remake comes out this year.

No way they have the resources to do an adventure remake and some additional mainline game. The adventure remake would be the mainline entry in this case. 

The only scenario in which we get two titles, is if one of them is a smaller entry like Mania, made by a separate team.

[Razule]

20 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

No way they have the resources to do an adventure remake and some additional mainline game. The adventure remake would be the mainline entry in this case. 

The only scenario in which we get two titles, is if one of them is a smaller entry like Mania, made by a separate team.

Yeah, I figured the scale of an Advenutre remake would probably be too big. It's a probably a small spin-off, if anything.

[SonicLegends]

10 hours ago, Betz said:

I don't know why theyd rewrite adventure, all the lines seem solid enough.

As Razule said for the sake of re-localizing. Adventure 2 especially given scenes like the infamous "I'll make you eat those words!" interrupting Shadow's line and Shadow saying when the Biolizard disappeared "Is that what Chaos Control is?" when it shouldn't be a question as he knows what it is and should have said around the lines of "That was chaos control." instead.

Edit: Not to mention I would gladly welcome the current voice actors doing the remakes so we can be rid of stuff like "Oh no!" from Knuckles as that line was terrible and is meme for how it was said in the execution.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Interesting how we think it's impossible for Sega to do 2 full sized main games at the same time these days, whil they did that all the time in the past.
Of course back then the quality of these games was subpar, while the quality of the current main games is...err... Slightly more stable subpar?

Either way, Sonic Team barely done anything since 2013 besides Forces and asissting Boom/ Mania/ Racing/ Sakura wars, and even then, Forces felt like a quick side project. So I'd love to be naieve and secretly hope Sonic Team has been working on a hidden mega project all this time, if only to give some meaning to this wasteland of a decade we've been trough.


And I love how the Pontaff thing went from "Yes they're gone!" to "Shit we have confirmation they worked on the very next project."
Of course everything that seems good news will immediatly turn into another slap in the face.