Neon White Is The Sonic Game I've Always Wanted

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Annapurna Interactive's Neon White, from famed developer Ben Esposito, conveys a sense of adrenaline-fueled speed even better than the Sonic The Hedgehog series. The Sonic series does give reason to go back and improve times with its grading system, a system that Neon White has in the form of medals. However, unlike Sonic, Neon White has bite-sized levels that are perfect for instant retries, making it a great game for players to try again and again to shave seconds or milliseconds off their previous times.

Released on June 16, 2022, for PC and Nintendo Switch, Neon White is a first-person action game where players take control of an assassin trying to earn a spot in Heaven by killing demons. Neon White comes after the success of other rapid-fire indie first-person action games, like Boomerang X and Ghostrunner, a game with so much surprise success it led to a sequel entering development. While the commercial success isn't quite clear so early after release, it seems like Neon White is at least critically successful, with the game sitting at an 88 on Metacritic and Overwhelmingly Positive user reviews on Steam.

Related: All June 2022 Video Game Release Dates

Using its easily replayable levels and leaderboards with friends, Neon White encourages the gotta go fast ideal of Sonic the Hedgehog much better than Sonic ever has. While the Sonic franchise has grades and other incentives to make players pick up the pace, the levels are just a bit too long for most players to want to jump right back in. In addition, while Sonic games have had leaderboards in the past, they're usually locked behind beating the game and playing the game in Time Attack mode.

Neon White's easily replayable levels are one way the game incentivizes