New Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 Development Details Revealed

New details regarding the development of Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 have been revealed by Iizuka during an interview with 4Gamer. Iizuka states the project came together after concept art of Speed Highway featuring a loop was shown to the team. Iizuka states there were more than 50 team members for Sonic Adventure. The team was drastically scaled back to only 11 for Sonic Adventure 2.

4Gamer: Since “Sonic 3”, you have been involved in almost all aspects of the series. Can tell us about a particularly memorable title?

Mr. Iizuka: “Sonic Adventure” and the sequel “Sonic Adventure 2” are quite memorable. I was impressed as the former was difficult to produce and the latter was fun to develop.

4Gamer: “Sonic Adventure” was released early for Dreamcast as the first 3D Sonic title in the series. It was released in 1998.

Mr. Iizuka: During development, the task of “how to make Sonic into 3D”, which had been 2D until then, was difficult, and people around me were sceptical about “Is it really interesting?” The moment I made concept art that went around a loop in Speed ​​Highway, everyone praised it and said “This is it!” … I remember being really happy. However, the amount of content in the game was so great that there was a lot of work to be done, and it was a battle against physical quantity.

4Gamer: Who was in charge of “Sonic Adventure”?

Mr. Iizuka: As a director and lead designer, I was in a position to decide all the game’s design. In the past, the project teams were about 20 people at most, but for “Sonic Adventure”, the number of people suddenly increased to 50 or more, so the situation was still uncertain.

4Gamer: Three years later, “Sonic Adventure 2” was released. I heard that the development with this title was fun.

Mr. Iizuka: In “Sonic Adventure 2”, I decided to go to the United States again, but at first I was travelling to the United States with a team of only 11 people. Before that, there were more than 50 people, but it’s reckless to develop a sequel with 11 people (laughs). In a sense, it can be said that it is a small number of experienced developers, but development in the United States was just fun. I don’t even remember thinking it was difficult.

4Gamer: The game also has the impression that it has been shaped up compared to the previous title.

Mr. Iizuka: Anyway, the previous title was packed with various elements and set the goal very high, but in the situation where there are 11 staff members in “Sonic Adventure 2”, there was a problem of “how to surpass the previous title”. I took the plunge and removed unnecessary elements as much as possible. I left the element of six playable characters, but narrowed down the story to two (hero and dark) and chose a game design that also took work efficiency into consideration. As a result, I think the content of the game became cohesive as a whole. With the birth of Sonic’s new rival, Shadow the Hedgehog, it was a memorable title.

We received details a while ago regarding remakes of Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. The remakes were planned as one episodic game for modern consoles and were in development as recent as 2017 by SEGA Shanghai (SEGA of China). These remakes were later shelved. Iizuka stating he finds both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 memorable is quite promising. It’s possible these remakes might resume development in future.

What are your thoughts on these new Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 development details? Let us know in the comments below!