Weaving A Dream: SEGA HARDlight on Building a "Unique, Honest and Respectful" Sonic Game - Sonic Stadium Interview

It's fair to say that Sonic Dream Team was the surprise hit of 2023 - which is no small feat in a truly packed year for Sonic fans, with a vast number of other Sonic games, comics and media all vying for our attention. But perhaps just as surprising as the game's colourful premise and platforming excellence is the developer behind it.

SEGA HARDlight is known for its slate of high-quality Sonic the Hedgehog mobile games, from endless runner Sonic Dash to competitive Sonic Forces spinoff Speed Battle. Based in the UK, this small but formidable studio is seen as one of SEGA West's best, and yet has not had the chance to tackle a major project like this before. Until now.

Sonic Dream Team is arguably the biggest game HARDlight has made, with a scope far outreaching its mobile spinoff roots and entering firm 'mainline Sonic game' territory. While it's a relatively short experience, it's an action platformer nonetheless in traditional Sonic the Hedgehog style, and has received critical and community acclaim for its creative environments, refreshing level design and fusion of gameplay elements inspired by the best of Sonic's past games.

The Sonic Stadium was lucky to get some time with SEGA HARDlight's Creative Director, Dan Rossati, to learn more about the development history of Dream Team, the studio's inspirations and ambitions, and why Cream the Rabbit had such a focus in the game. Read on!

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Q: The announcement of Sonic Dream Team came as a delightful surprise to many fans, and was totally unexpected. How long has HARDlight been working on this project, and how do you feel now that people finally know about and are playing the game?

DR: Ha, yeah, we were genuinely taken back by the overwhelmingly positive response from the announcement, but we’ve been blown away by the positive reception of the game’s release. Dream Team was in development for a little under two years, which is a relatively short time to make a full 3D platformer, but quite a long time to keep something you’re excited about a secret, so it’s a bit of a relief that it’s out in the wild and players are enjoying it.

Q: Sonic has fought Eggman on the ground, in the sky, across dimensions, even in space! But this is the first time that Sonic is having to battle through dreams, right? How did you guys come up with the story, and what was it like working with Ian Flynn on building out the overall plot and approach to the game?

DR: You’re right, we’ve covered just about every stage of battle you can think of. Sonic is the perfect IP for exploring lots of different settings. And while dreams have been used in various Sonic media before, including Sonic Shuffle on the Dreamcast, it is true to say that this is the first game where they’ve battled Dr. Eggman in a dream world.

The story went on quite the journey throughout the making of the game, I could fill a couple of books about that, but I know the Sonic Stadium audience are really into the details of Sonic stories, so I’ll share some highlights.

The dream setting came up early, before I joined the team in fact, but the how and the why portion took a while to solidify. Those aspects formed when applying individual motivations to support the choice of characters, mainly, I kept asking myself how and why Cream was there. If we wanted her to be a main part of the cast, we felt she should be important to the plot yet retain her child-like qualities. That’s where the Reverie and it’s “pure of heart” security measure came from, which we combined with an idea from Iizuka-san to incorporate what he calls a “guide” character, who we ultimately shaped into Ariem, our Dreamweaver and the Guardian of the Reverie.

The Reverie was inspired by dreamcatchers, the twist being I wanted it to feel like an ancient device that allowed Ariem to plausibly wield the wisdom of the ages she’s seen. Sonic characters tend to stick around for other adventures, so it was important to give Ariem a foundation that allowed us and other writers to explore her personality and origins in the future. The dreamcatcher inspiration was important due to the role they play in protecting children, in our case Cream. Slight spoiler alert, but you’ll notice when you play the game, the location of the Reverie in relation to where Cream is being held. It’s above her while she’s sleeping, and I love the idea that Ariem and the Reverie symbolize an almost apotropaic role in the story.

On top of that idea, I layered in the concept of a loom for weaving. I was already thinking of Ariem as being a Dreamweaver, with the ability to weave a person’s disparate dreams into something that could be tangible in the real world. The laser-like threads inside the Reverie move back and forth, indicating a loosely defined weft and warp, like you’d find in a loom, just with fluctuations to indicate the random nature of dreams.

The final piece of the puzzle was Ariem herself. She needed to be super powerful in her own domain, while also caring and protective for both Cream and Knuckles, who I felt shares the fate of a Guardian and I hoped her words and actions would be particularly inspiring to him.

She took the form of a sheep initially due to an early team idea of counting sheep, and her name, a play on R.E.M sleep, came from the same line of thinking.  While we played with her visual elements, I discovered a type of sheep that fit her personality perfectly; the British Swaledale Sheep. It is said that the ewes make amazing mothers that are very protective and capable of raising their lambs in almost any condition. This idea really matched the stoic yet motherly personality I’d envisioned for Ariem, and the females also have horns, so her power could be portrayed correctly in her design. Sheep’s wool also tied-in with her being a Dreamweaver and re-enforced the loom idea for the Reverie, so it all came together.

The next step was fitting everything into the game, and this is where we managed to get Ian Flynn involved. He did an incredible job of absorbing all my thoughts and ideas from my original draft and compressing them into something more compact, while also keeping the characters true to who they are, something he’s known for in the community. Ian’s amazing to work with and I count myself fortunate that I get to speak to him often thanks to us both being members of the Sonic Lore team. Ian cares deeply about the characters and has spent a large chunk of his working life pouring his passion in the franchise and he brought that same enthusiasm to Dream Team.

Q: A lot of fans are excited about the return of Cream the Rabbit as a playable character. As the SEGA studio that has arguably had experience handling the largest number of characters from the Sonic franchise, how did you come to choose which playable characters would feature in Sonic Dream Team?

DR: That’s an excellent question! The “who do we choose?” question is often tough, but like most things in game design, it normally stems from multiple factors such as design needs, narrative fit, and the sheer terror of telling HARDlight’s dev crew that they can’t have Cream in the game. But on a more serious note, Cream has a huge fanbase in the community and she was chosen very early on... Actually, she was planned for a bunch of various ideas we were choosing from with different premises that’d have supported her inclusion.

We were fortunate in that the design called for multiple characters with archetypal movement and we made the choice that there would be male and female versions of each type, simply to have that choice. Tails and Cream were seen as a skill match, largely due to how they were used in Sonic Heroes. Rouge, through similar logic, borrowed from SA2 where she was Team Dark’s equivalent to Knuckles.

Q: I’ve read about how HARDlight has taken inspiration from Tony Hawk and Super Mario Sunshine, but were there any specific past Sonic the Hedgehog games that helped guide the development of Sonic Dream Team? A number of fans have picked up on how the game’s structure feels similar to that of Sonic Adventure 2, for example.

DR: Absolutely, though typically, the process I tend to use starts with a defined vision of what the game should be, how it should feel when you play it and what’s important to the experience. For Dream Team, a key aspect was flow, specifically chaining movement together.

With that defined, the team is free to look at the back catalogue to see which past games have design solutions that support those objectives. It’s important for the team to keep in mind that every game is made with time, budget, and technological constraints, so when looking at past solutions to problems, you still need to evaluate whether you can execute them to a higher standard using today’s hardware and techniques. This is often an area where it can be dangerous to be a fan - you lose your objectivity because romanticized nostalgia will stop you from evaluating clearly.

That said, I think using this line of thought means there’s definitely inspiration from the SA games, Heroes, the classic and advance 2D games and certainly various sections of boost style gameplay too. It’s nearly all in there in some way, often re-molded to fit our exact needs. It is also worth acknowledging that helping shape every Sonic game is Iizuka-san. He’s being doing this for 30+ years, so some of his style and design choices will naturally shine through in all the games.

Essentially, if fans are feeling ties to the older games, they’re likely right. There aren’t too many accidental references in entertainment mediums like games and animation, everything must be crafted by creative people making deliberate choices.

I think overall, what we landed on with Dream Team is unique, yet honest and respectful of everything that’s gone before and that’s something I’m proud of the team for being able to accomplish.

Q: How challenging has it been to design a game that can be easily played both on touchscreen and with the use of a controller, across multiple devices (including Mac computers)? I imagine the game mechanics would have to be carefully looked at in order to be satisfying for all players.

DR: Whenever you’re developing a game that can be played across multiple devices, you always must be conscious of how players might play it. Especially for an action-platformer like Sonic Dream Team, which is playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. We anticipated players using different controller types and implemented some excellent solutions to various control methods - the game plays great and the feedback has reflected that, which has been heartening.

Q: You guys have worked with Apple Arcade in the past, but this is the first original work that's built from the ground up for the service. How did that process kick off with Apple for Sonic Dream Team, and what’s been your experience like working with them on a project of this scale?

DR: Apple are an exceptional creative partner and they’re very much a patron of the arts for this sort of project. Sonic Dream Team’s origins were simply building upon what we’d done together on Apple Arcade games prior, you could think of it as a natural next step to what came before.  We’ve had a great experience working with the Apple Arcade team to bring Sonic Dream Team to new audiences worldwide and that’s set to continue with our upcoming DLC.

Q: Speaking outside of Sonic Dream Team for a moment, I remember interviewing HARDlight years ago before Sonic Forces Speed Battle was released and having a great discussion about the drive and direction for the studio. When talking about SEGA HARDlight’s ambitions today, would you say we’ve entered into a new chapter in the developer’s history? Would you want to work on more, larger-scale Sonic games in the future, maybe even console games?

DR: I think that’s a good way to characterize it, creating an all-new Sonic title has been an absolute privilege for our team. Sonic Dream Team is undoubtedly the most ambitious original Sonic title HARDlight’s ever tackled. We’ve had a fantastic time working on this scale of project and we’re already having discussions about what is coming next. As a bunch of Sonic fans ourselves, we’re certainly looking forward to the future.

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The Sonic Stadium thanks Dan Rossati, the SEGA HARDlight team and SEGA for their time and responses.