Why Sonic Mania 2 Never Came to Fruition

by Stritix July 26, 2023 0 comments

Thanks to Game Informer, Takashi Iizuka and Christian Whitehead have both clarified the reason as of why Sonic Mania 2 never came to fruition. The rumors regarding relations between the Sonic Mania development team and SEGA have also been clarified.

There was a period after the development of Sonic Mania when we worked with them to consider concepts for the next generation of Classic Sonic,

It’s too bad that it didn’t become a finished game. Still, I’m pleased that the next generation of Classic Sonic that we talked about with them has been achieved with Superstars.

When you make a 2D game using pixel art, you kind of end up targeting a very specific core audience,

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. But 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.

Evening Star did work with Sega to explore possible directions Classic Sonic could go after the success of Sonic Mania. 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. At the same time, Evening Star was developing our new Star Engine, so we also ended up making a cool Sonic prototype that played with depth in 2.5D, and some other gameplay ideas.

A lot of the things that we talked about with Christian, you know, ‘Let’s make it a visually rich game that’s not based in pixel. Let’s not do the Mania thing of reusing stuff. Let’s make something brand new with all-new levels,’ that’s where the start of the concepting happened after Mania, but everything came to a stop,

When we kicked off Sonic Superstars with Ohshima-san’s team, a lot of the conversations that we had with Christian were already in our heads, and we did start creating a new game already in a similar vein of, ‘Let’s make something new’ and ‘Let’s make something not pixel.’

During Sonic Mania’s development, I didn’t expect this level of fan reaction or success,

That success created the opportunity to think about the next generation of Classic Sonic and led to Sonic Superstars. Sonic Mania helped us realize that fans still wanted and enjoyed the Classic series.

Takashi Iizuka explains why Sonic Mania 2 didn’t happen.

Christian Whitehead has also clarified the rumors regarding fallout between the Sonic Mania development team and SEGA are false.

When we started Evening Star, it was always our goal to move beyond 2D pixel art into 3D games, and develop all-new, original IP,

As Iizuka-san said, though, [Evening Star] did not continue to full production on the game, at which point Arzest took the helm and made Superstars alongside Sonic Team,

We moved forward with our plans to develop an original 3D title, which is, of course, Penny’s Big Breakaway! Superstars looks awesome and our team is really excited to play it when it comes out.

Contrary to any rumors, we maintain a friendly relationship with Sega and hope fans are pumped to play both games once they release

Christian Whitehead addresses rumors regarding fallout between the Sonic Mania team and SEGA.

So there you go; there has been no fallout. The Sonic Mania team ultimately wanted to move forward with their own unique IP, while SEGA wanted to continue with developing a new Classic Sonic title.

Sonic Superstars is set to be released Fall 2023, while Penny’s Big Breakaway is set to be released early 2024.