Gaming companies are sharing all sorts of special artwork on social media at the moment to celebrate the holidays and new year, and joining in on the fun is Sega's official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account.
It recently shared a stunning carnival scene featuring Sonic and a number of classic characters such as Mighty, Ray, Fang and Bean. This picture was actually done by Nathalie Fourdraine, who has helped out with a number of covers on IDW's Sonic comic series. We've also got some holiday art (above) highlighting characters like Cream and Amy Rose.
"Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year from all of us at SEGA!"
This year marks Sonic the Hedgehog's 30th anniversary. Sega has already mentioned how it has some very exciting news to share and can't wait to reveal what it is.
Would you like to see any of these classic characters return for Sonic's 30th anniversary? Tell us down in the comments.
[source twitter.com, via nintendosoup.com]
Comments 30
The fact that they chose to highlight Cream brings a tear to my eye. The mad lads at Sega actually acknowledged her. It makes me so happy🥲
Agghhh those Sonic Advance references kill me, I need Toy Kingdom and Music Plant to come back. I need Sonic Advance Mania.
Wow, it's specifically a Sonic Advance 3 scene too.
Any time there's amazing artwork of a lesser-known game that's well past its release window, you know it's truly for the fans.
Got anything for fans of any of your mountain of IPs NOT named "Sonic", Sega? Shining Force? Skies of Arcadia? Some Arcade, Dreamcast, or even Saturn compilations? Dragon Force?
Sonic has some sort of "anniversary" (and more importantly, at least one game or spinoff) every single year. It'd be nice to see some attention finally given to other franchises or projects fans have been asking for since the Dreamcast's swan song.
But this is Sega we're talking about, sadly.
Wow the Sonic Advance 3 Emerl, I never though SEGA would remember him
@AtlanteanMan Idk it feels like these last few years they've been kind of doing nothing with Sonic
Sonic isn't even their biggest franchise anymore. IPs like Persona, Yakuza and Total War have overtaken it in terms of commercial sales to my knowledge let alone critically
Plus Streets of Rage 4 and the Panzeer Dragoon remake show that they're clearly willing to bring back non-Sonic IPs even if it means outsourcing their development while they work on larger scale stuff
@AtlanteanMan
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
This kinda makes me sad, not sure why.
Love the snow covered Toy Kingdom pic, never thought I'd see them reference that.
Would've been nice to work in Twinkle Snow a bit too, that level feels so Christmasy, especially the Act 2 and Act 3 music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9n_da8-2Do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbxQ66i-6c
rip Miles "Tails" Prower
@TheFrenchiestFry Don’t forget Football Manager, that’s doing brilliant numbers too, which should only increase with the Xbox port this year.
@nessisonett Oh yeah I completely forgot about Football Manager. I'm pretty sure Total War and Football Manager might be in like the top 3 or even top 2 most successful SEGA IPs right now but Persona and Yakuza as of rn are definitely top 5
Love that little squirrel dude. We need a Mania sequel sega!
All the characters from Sonic the Fighters (including Honey the Cat!) with Mighty and Ray? Come on Sonic the Fighters rerelease with extra content! Or better yet, a remaster/sequel!
@TheFrenchiestFry As you said, neither Streets of Rage 4 nor the Panzer Dragoon remake were developed by Sega themselves; they outsourced them to smaller companies. Even Shenmue 3 had to find life as a Kickstarter. The bottom line is that Sega doesn't want to invest their own resources in anything not Sonic-related. Yakuza has admittedly been a commercial success for them, which is the only reason that it's been kept around, but it's far from everyone's cup of tea. The Total War franchise may likewise be successful, but since it's a PC exclusive I don't count it. Ditto Football Manager; for this particular topic I am referring exclusively to console development.
A company with the resources of Sega with so many brilliant IPs that fans have been requesting for years or decades could easily give us at least one of them each year, developed in-house. But instead their reputation as a once-great publisher that's now a shadow of its former self has been well earned for nearly the past two decades. They have occasionally given us fleeting glimpses of that amazing quality that once made them a household name (example: Valkyria Chronicles), but sadly those flashes of former brilliance are way too few and far between.
Always excited for Sonic news and I loved all the Sonic games on Switch so far.
Games I would like to see in the anniversary:
Sonic Mania 2
Sonic Adventure 1 remake
New Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing
Sega Ages: Sonic 3
The Christian Whitehead version of Sonic CD
@TheFrenchiestFry @AtlanteanMan They didn't just outsource the development, they even outsourced the PUBLISHING. Young people won't even associate the majority of SEGA's franchises with SEGA at all which is kind of sad but yeah, it's better than nothing. I hope the success of Streets of Rage 4 gives them food for thought.
Its long overdue Sega pay homage to Christmas NiGHTS..
Sneaky with that reference to Sonic 2 Game Gear's bad ending.
New games please.
Um...
...
.... is Tails dead?
@Sun_wukong I still can't believe they didn't port Nights into Dreams across as part of Sega Ages - the Night's games would have been such a great fit on Switch and could have opened the door for other Saturn and Dreamcast ports (Sonic Adventure for example)
These pictures make me feel nostalgic for Sonic Chronicles and I would love to see a new game in that franchise.
Genesis does...what Ninten-DO!
Who is that sitting with Tails?
@Samuel-Flutter that's Honey the Cat. She was an unfinished fighter in Sonic the Fighters who was fully finished and implemented in the 2012 console port of the game. Her inclusion in the picture makes me hopeful for some sort of Sonic the Fighters news
Would really prefer if they spent some time remastering old Dreamcast-Saturn era games for the switch!
That is definitely some beautiful artwork. Almost makes me want to boot up Sonic Mania for another go!
I don’t much care for the extended Sonic cast but those are some lovely bits of art. Would love a Sonic game with that art style!
I would've wanted these for wallpapers for Sega 60's Week 8 instead of Secret Rings Artwork on a yellow background!
Lovely, sets an interesting mood for sure. I'd love Sega to do a gamble here and take something like this as concept art for a game. Just a "plain old" 2D game with handdrawn assets, but a different visual mood than other Sega games, a different - or broader - cast and yeah, some new, inventive mechanics that fit with that concept. Not an easy task for sure, but then great games don't spring from simple tasks.
The second piece of arts suggests, that there is a whole community here worth exploring, actual characters and narrative beats to hit, maybe a bit of drama between the characters? Sky's - or rather - the imagination is the limit here.
@NinChocolate Ray was first introduced all way back with sonic arcade game
He isnt new to mania, they just brought him back
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