SEGA says a positive market reaction to Sonic Mania could influence the future of the series

A portion of a Metro interview with Sonic Team’s Takashi Iizuka...

GC: To me, as an older fan, Sonic Mania looked great and Sonic Forces was only okay. Is it the other way round for kids? In terms of which they prefer?

TI: The target audience for Sonic Mania is the fans who like the Mega Drive from back in the day. We didn’t conduct playtesting with kids for Sonic Mania, since it’s not really about what kids think about Mania. But for Forces we did conduct broad research and playtesting, and made sure it’s accepted by a broader audience, from kids to adults. But the surprising thing about Mania is that when we were conducting research, there’s like a voice from the kids that they actually like pixelated and 2D Sonic too. So I think there’s a market for Mania amongst kids as well.

GC: What do you do about elements in Sonic Forces which older fans might not like but kids will? Sonic’s friends, for example. The goal in the demo level is to find Shadow. And, really… I don’t want to find Shadow. I’d prefer he stayed lost.

TI: [laughs] In the past two decades Sonic games have been trying to target a broader audience from kids to adults. And Forces has that same idea, so that means a wider range of characters that we know children like. Even if other fans may not be quite as keen.

But for Mania it’s kind of like a new approach. To target specifically 2D fans. So we don’t know whether it’ll be accepted positively in the market. We’ll find out after the game’s released, and we can figure out the direction of future titles after seeing the reaction.