INTRODUCTION
The Sonic Team Panel at South By Southwest 2018 have revealed Sonic Team's plans for 2018. A new version of Sonic Mania (Sonic Mania Plus), a new shorts (Sonic Mania Adventures), a collaboration with Puma, and a new Sonic Racing game have all been teased by the Sonic Team Panel. These four revelations promise a year filled with Sonic the Hedgehog content in 2018. Here's a closer look at these four releases.
Sonic's Plans For 2018
Sonic Mania Plus
Sonic Mania Plus is an updated physical title of the critically acclaimed Sonic Mania which released august 2017. Sonic Mania Plus features new modes, such as an Encore Mode and a four-player competition mode, but details about these new mechanisms weren't published.
Sonic Mania Plus has some additional substance that fans will love, such as two new playable characters, called Mighty and Ray (both older Sonic characters), and comes with holographic packaging and a 32-page art book. The game will launch in summer 2018, on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and XBOX ONE. Sonic Mania Plus will include Sonic Mania and these new upgrades and will cost $29,99. Owners of Sonic Mania can also upgrade their digital copy, but these costs aren't revealed as of yet. With the massive success of Sonic Mania in mind, Sonic Mania Plus is expected to do very well.
Sonic Mania Adventures
Sonic Mania Adventures is a series of animated short episodes starring Sonic the Hedgehog in the world of Sonic Mania. A total of five episodes are to be released this year, and they will all be free to watch on Youtube. Sonic Team also showed off a part of the first of these episodes in a trailer(can be seen below). The exact dates on which these short episodes release is unknown as of yet.
Sonic collaborates with Puma
The Sonic Team Panel revealed an upcoming collaboration with Puma. A trailer and advertisement (can be seen below) for a new pair of Puma shoes were shown as a result. This pair of shoes represents the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, as they're blue with a yellow mark. The sneakers are labelled as PUMA x SEGA RS-0 SONIC and are said to be coming June 2018. Further details are unknown, but apparently one will run as fast a Sonic with them.
Sonic teases a new Sonic racing game
In a 'top secret' video (can be seen below), the Sonic Team Panel has teased a new Sonic Racing game. Confirming nothing except excluding the game being a sequel of any other game, much about this new entry is unexplained, but the title logo was visible enough to interpret the word 'Racing' under a franchise title. The video itself also showed a racing car starting up, thus confirming it's a racing title. What kind of Sonic Racing game this is going to be will most likely be revealed soon.
That's all of the news the Sonic Team Panel at South By Southwest 2018 has revealed. Although it appears to be that no major Sonic titles will come out in 2018, Sonic Team definitely tries to impress with some new releases and announcements. We'll keep an eye out for the details that Sonic Team will definitely release soon.
