Sonic Mania Announced for Spring 2017

Last night during SDCC a brand new Sonic the Hedgehog title was announced called Sonic Mania. SEGA hosted a live stream on YouTube and Twitch celebrating Sonic’s 25th anniversary.

You can be happy to hear it’s taking Sonic back to his roots. It is a full-fledged 2D Sonic game starring… Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles as playable characters. It brings back the “core classic gameplay” we grew up with as kids playing the original Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s hitting PS4, Xbox One, and PC in spring 2017. A price was not given during the live-stream, but it will likely be around $40 to $50 as usual for most AAA titles.

Sonic Mania includes re-imagined areas from Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD, and Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles, as well as brand new areas. The game is being co-developed by SEGA of America, PagodaWest Games, and developers Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley.

In a statement, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka described Sonic Mania as a “passion project” that “was born out of our fans’ love of the classic Sonic 2D platform games.” He added, “This type of collaboration is a first for SEGA and we hope everyone will be both surprised and delighted by this title.”

Will you be picking this game up? I will personally give it a shot on consoles as that’s what I primarily play on. The idea of going back to Sonic’s old roots is what interests me the most. I’ve also come to love the Sonic Adventure and that style of gameplay though as well. It’ll feel awkward going back to playing Sonic in 2D, but it will be a blast for fans who liked the classic Sonic games.

More details about Sonic Mania will be revealed later this year. Below is the announcement trailer which appeared during the live-stream.