Some time after the Death Egg saga, a sudden dimensional breach occurs in the earth's atmosphere, causing a unique energy wave signature to appear on Angel Island. Spoiler warning: Plot, ending details or any kind of information follow. Sonic Mania Plus includes the return of Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel as playable characters, as well as a 4-player Competition Mode and "Encore Mode". Downloadable content to the base game, titled "Encore DLC", was released alongside the physical version. With a future port to iOS and Android via Netflix Games in 2024 A definitive version of the game, titled Sonic Mania Plus, was released on July 17, 2018. The game saw a physical release for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on November 5, 2019. The game was announced on Jand released digitally on Augfor Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, and on August 29 for PC. The game emulates the gameplay and 2D sprite animation of the original Sega Mega Drive Sonic games. Sonic Mania was developed by Christian Whitehead, who had previously worked on enhanced ports of early Sonic games, with the aid of Headcannon and PagodaWest Games, who were chosen for their work in the Sonic fangame community and was published by Sega. The storyline of the game also ties into the events of Sonic Forces. Eggman and his Hard Boiled Heavies from harnessing a mysterious energy source known as the Phantom Ruby. The game is shortly set after the conclusion of the Death Egg saga and follows Sonic, Tails and Knuckles as they try to keep Dr. “The game was created from zero – from absolutely nothing – but we were still looking at all those four Classic games and creating physics that are going to match and feel like what the Classic series needs to be, from scratch.Sonic Mania ( ソニックマニア, Sonikku Mania ?) is a side-scrolling platformer video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise which acts as a celebration of the series' 25th anniversary.
“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,” he said. Iizuka, for his part, credits Mania - alongside the original Sonic trilogy - as inspiring Sonic Superstars’ focus on bringing something brand new to the Sonic series in terms of visuals and design, while remaining rooted in the old-school feel of Sonics past ( for better or worse). Sonic Mania’s creators have gone their separate ways since its release six years ago, with Evening Star creating colourful 3D platformer Penny's Big Breakaway and Sega developing co-op platformer Sonic Superstars with developers Arzest.Įven so, Whitehead explicitly dismissed reports that Sonic Mania 2 had been scrapped due to creative differences between the teams, insisting the devs “maintain a friendly relationship with Sega”. “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,” he said.ĩ Minutes of Sonic Superstars Gameplay | Summer Game Fest 2023
Meanwhile, Whitehead expressed that his own studio, Evening Star, had always planned to create 3D titles and original IP on the back of Mania’s success, rather than focusing solely on 2D pixel art - adding that the developers created a 2.5D Sonic prototype in its own Star Engine. "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.” "When you make a 2D game using pixel art, you kind of end up targeting a very specific core audience," Iizuka said.
To see this content please enable targeting cookies.īoth Iizuka and Whitehead said that Sega and the devs agreed that whatever followed Mania would need to “move beyond” the pixel art style used as a throwback to Sonic’s 16-bit origins.įor Izuka and Sega, that consideration came down to maximising the possible audience for a 2D Sonic platformer.