'Sonic Superstars' Team Discuss The Future Of Sonic Game Art

Sonic Superstars poster

Image Source: Fanatical

Sonic Superstars is a return to form for the Sonic franchise as it harkens back to its Genesis side-scrolling roots. However, unlike 2017’s Sonic Mania, it has chosen a 2.5D art style rather than the pixel art of the past. This seems to be the direction Takashi Iizuka wants to take the classic side of the series.

Iizuka believes that pixel art will not be viable in the next 10-20 years, stating that “the pixel art - it's great - but when we think about 10-20 years in the future…we don't think it's going to be a viable art style or presentation for our players. And in order to advance and really step things up, we did want to make sure that we're presenting something that 10-20 years down the road we're still evolving and creating new content for."

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Though indie games continue to use pixel art, and 2017’s Sonic Mania is the highest-rated game of the franchise on Metacritic, Iizuka does not think pixel art will be viable in the future. He also had this to say regarding how the team develops the future of the Sonic franchise:

”When we talk about the brand, we definitely need to have a modern Sonic 3D game…We also feel we need to have a classic Sonic 2D game. Those are our fundamental pillars that we need to have. We're expanding into movies and TV, but we still need to have both the 3D and the 2D line up for our gaming audience."

Iizuka stated that the foundation set by Sonic Frontiers could be built upon for the next 10-20 years as well. Whatever your opinion is on Iizuka’s take on pixel art, it’s clear that he and his team have a clear direction for the Sonic franchise for at least the next two decades. Sonic Superstars speeds onto all major platforms on October 17th of this year.

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