Christian Whitehead Is On Good Terms With Sega, And They Never Planned To Make Sonic Mania 2

gameranx.com:

Sonic Mania fans might not be ready for this revelation, coming from no less than Christian Whitehead and Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka.

As reported by Game Informer, we will just go straight to Christian’s words on this topic:

“Sonic Mania 2 was never in development.”

Yep, that’s real. So what’s going on here?

A few months ago, rumor spread that a hypothetical Sonic Mania 2 was cancelled because of a disagreement between Sonic Team and Sonic Mania’s lead developer, Christian Whitehead. In this new Game Informer report, Christian and Takashi definitely debunk this story.

So, what really happened was in the planning for the next Sonic game after Sonic Mania, Sonic Team decided they wanted to move away from recycling sprites and the 2D aesthetic. They wanted to take the gameplay design of Sonic Mania and bring it to a 3D CG style, to make a 2.5 D platformer.

Christian Whitehead and the rest of the Sonic Mania staff were up for it. Around this time, they decide to make their own independent game studio, named Evening Star, and create their own engine for 2.5 D games, called Star Engine.

The game studio Evening Star sent Sega some game proposals and prototypes, and Sega rejected them. And that’s it. Both Takashi and Christian make it clear there are no hard feelings, and the two sides moved on.

As we now know, Sonic Team would give their new 2.5 D Sonic project to Arzest, and it would be introduced to the public as Sonic Superstars. Evening Star, for their part, moved forward with making their own 3D platformer, which we now know as Penny’s Big Breakaway.

For his part, Iizuka wanted to emphasize that in spite of the change in studio, Sonic Superstars was definitely building on Sonic Mania’s success. In particular, Sega