Future Sonic games to have bigger budgets

Sega’s blue hedgehog could see bigger and higher quality games going forward, after the most recent game in the series exceeded expectations.

The success of the latest Sonic game has prompted Sega to invest more into its flagship franchise, with future games in the series said to be getting increased budgets.

Sonic Frontiers reportedly “greatly exceeded” Sega’s expectations, with Sega saying that the game got “good results” after launching in November last year. The company says that a temporary price drop on Black Friday helped boost the sales, but that revenues for the title remained high.

Sega says that while the game received average reviews from critics, the user score on websites like Metacritic was “very high”, leading the company to believe that the title was “widely accepted by people around the world”.

Sonic Frontiers introduced big open worlds for Sonic to explore, but also included traditional levels. Picture: Sega

Because of the widespread success of the game, as well as the rising costs of game development, Sega will be increasing its budget for future games in the Sonic series.

“We expect development costs for new titles to grow even larger in the future,” Sega said in its earnings meeting, as translated by Tails Channel, “We are proceeding with a bigger budget, even from the basic research stage. Therefore, we assume that development costs for future new titles will increase accordingly”.

The company says that it should be able to maintain momentum on both Sonic and other series it has, such as Like a Dragon, for which a new game is scheduled to be released next week. It also thinks that upcoming DLC for Sonic Frontiers will help boost sales even more, alongside discounts and promotions.

Sonic games often include side activities to offer a distraction from the main game. Picture: Sega

The new Sonic game was announced to be getting free DLC characters this year, with three waves of downloadable content set to be released throughout the year. The third of the DLC waves is said to be introducing new playable characters, such as Tails, Knuckles, and Amy.

Games aren’t the only place the Sonic franchise is making waves either. A prominent Lego insider said that Sonic might be getting Lego this year, and a Sonic the Hedgehog animated show arrived in December to good reviews.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.