Sonic Boom Speculation In which direction is the blue blur headed?
With 2014 came the announcement of SEGAs’ newest installment into the Sonic franchise: Sonic Boom. Whether you think it looks like a good idea or another terrible move, one thing can be said for sure: Sonic Boom has caught our attention.
After a few long years of poorly received Sonic games, SEGA has been playing it safe with more recent entries in their long-running mascot’s franchise. Sonic Team has been making games with what they know works: half 3D/half 2D A-to-B gameplay with power-ups along the way. While these have been fun and are being well received critically, ensuring a firm critical base has allowed the developer to finally mix things up for fans, and that’s what Sonic Boom has set out to do.
Sonic hasn’t had major success in 3D platforming since his days in the Adventure series, and even then Sonic never had that full immersive 3D game that some players wanted to explore and run around in. Sonic Adventure (1998) was the only largely successful Sonic title to feature full hub worlds, which were swapped out for a simple stage select map in Sonic Adventure 2 (2001). But the hub worlds in Sonic Adventure didn’t allow for too much exploration, they more served the purpose of providing a space to perform a simple task in, in order to unlock the next stage. This formula has been known to work well, but Sonic Adventures’ hubs came out just a little lacklustre in comparison to others of the time.
Judging by what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard from developers of the game, it’s clear that Sonic Boom plans to bring us that fully fleshed out 3D world to explore as Sonic and his newly redesigned friends. Check out this peek at a possible in-development hub world from Sonic Boom, as seen in a tech demo of CryEngine 3 from last year:
A classic 3D platforming game with collectibles, challenges, and power-ups isn’t a style that Sonic has taken on yet, but Sonic Boom could change that. Many have pointed out that the renowned 3D platforming and shooter series Jak and Daxter appears to have a major influence on Sonic Boom, both stylistically and in gameplay. As we’ve noticed in the trailer, Sonic Boom is being developed by Big Red Button Entertainment, a completely new developer that was unheard of until this point, and is being worked on in-part with Sonic Team. Meanwhile, the current “Modern Sonic” series and type of gameplay will be continued by Sonic Team themselves over in Japan alongside the Boom series. This means that Sonic Boom will be the first mainstream Sonic title not being mainly developed by Sonic Team in years.
But who is this mystery developer, and do they have what it takes to tackle such an ambitious project? After all, Sega has high hopes for Sonic Boom as a franchise, providing the game with a companion TV show and toy-line. Well, it turns out that Big Red Button Entertainment was founded in 2009 by Bob Rafei and Jeff Lander, former Naughty Dog veteran developers, who have worked on the Jak and Daxter series, the Crash Bandicoot series, and even the more recent Uncharted series, explaining the Naughty Dog feel that this game is giving off.
Big Red Button also features developer Chris Senn, best known for his work on the legendary unfinished Sonic game for the Sega Saturn: Sonic X-treme, as well as more developers from Naughty Dog, Heavy Iron, Luxo Flux and High Impact Games. So there may be more hope for Sonic Boom than some might think at a first glance.
As for more on gameplay, we can expect a slight return of the Sonic Heroes (2003) style, which allowed the player to switch from member to member of the team in order to complete a level, while the other members followed behind collecting rings and power-ups.This team based mechanic was onto something good, but failed to really capture the feel of a team at its smoothest and most useful. Because of this, what we can expect from Sonic Boom is a more refined version of this mechanic, with better AI, and smoother transitions from character to character (hopefully through better controls). We should also expect there to be segments of levels (if not entire levels) to be played by just one character, without the team on your tail(s). Not to mention, the possibility of local multiplayer where players can participate on the same team is seeming pretty high.
It turns out that we may not have much to fear for Sonic and his friends in Sonic Boom, but it may be too soon to say for sure, as we still know so little about the game. So cross your fingers Sonic fans, and stick with us here at Games Reviews for more updates and speculation on Sonic Boom, and all the games you’re looking forward to.