Sonic Superstars
Image: SEGA

It's been revealed Sonic Superstars will be developed by the Japanese team at Arzest - a studio run by Naoto Ohshima, who is best known for designing the blue blur.

Sonic Team's head Takashi Iizuka has revealed how the studio became involved when plans "fell through" with the Sonic Mania developers, Christian Whitehead and Headcannon (via VGC).

There were apparently "some concepts and ideas laid out between the teams" but they were unable to "kick off the project". Iizuka during this time had a chat with his old co-workers, proposing a Sonic game and that's how Ohshima and his own company got involved.

It's being created with some guidance from Sonic Team, but Arzest is "100%" the developer:

"Sonic Superstars is really all developed by Arzest, but Sonic Team in Japan is working with them on design and some other elements. Arzest and Ohshima-san are 100% developers of the game."

Arzest was founded in 2010 and started off life with the release of Wii Play: Motion. Since then it's gone on games like Yoshi's New Island, Hey! Pikmin, the Mario & Luigi series on 3DS and has previously worked on games like Balan Wonderworld, and co-developed Balan Wonderworld.

Apart from Sonic's character design, Naoto Ohshima also worked on level design in the original Sonic the Hedgehog game. In the new game, he has created a brand new character that Sonic and his friends will have to face.

Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.

It's also been revealed Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic Adventure composer Jun Senoue is the Superstars' music director, with others like composer Tee Lopes (Sonic Mania) contributing to the soundtrack.

Are you excited about Sonic Superstars? Tell us below.

[source videogameschronicle.com]