Sonic’s turning 30, and Sega wants to mark the occasion.
Sonic Forces and Sonic Mania both arrived in 2017, with the latter entry garnering wide acclaim and selling upwards of a million copies in its first seven or eight months. Earlier this year, the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog film was released theatrically, grossing $306 million worldwide just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
So, with a movie sequel on the way and the series’s anniversary coming up, Sega has “a year of celebration” lined up for 2021.
New Sonic Games Coming Out in 2021
A new licensing catalog — spotted by Tails’ Channel and VG247 — teases some of Sega’s plans for the character next year.
Specifically, the publisher is advertising: “new games, digital content, events, major announcements, and a tailored licensing program” for Sonic in 2021.
If you want to see the licensing catalog for yourself, Sonic’s on pages 90 and 91 of the viewable Issuu document.
According to the ad, Sonic the Hedgehog has generated over $6 billion in revenue to date.
The character’s games alone, Sega says, have sold more than 920 million copies in total.
Given the license’s success in 2017 with Sonic Mania (alongside the 3D platformer, Sonic Forces), we might expect the plural here — “new games” — to again mean a more traditional Sonic title as well as a new 3D game.
And with Sonic the Hedgehog scoring the highest-grossing opening weekend for a video-game movie adaptation ever, “digital content” might mean a TV series or something of that nature is in the works; time will tell.
Variety reports that the next Sonic film will be directed by Jeff Fowler, with Pat Casey and Josh Miller penning the script.
Neal H. Moritz, Toby Ascher, and Toru Nakahara will produce, with Hajime Satomi, Haruki Satomi, and Tim Miller getting executive-producer credits on the sequel.
The last film starred Ben Schwartz as Sonic and Jim Carrey as the diabolical Dr. Robotnik.
We’ll probably know a lot more about Sonic’s 30th-anniversary celebration in early 2021.