Sega's iconic blue hedgehog has had it rough. Sonic's last two video games, Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, were awful. They also sold terribly. In fact, they are the worst selling Sonic games of all time.
That doesn't look to be stopping Sega from cranking out another entry in the Sonic Boom series, however. Announced today (via IGN), Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice will be a Nintendo 3DS exclusive releasing later this year.
Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Sticks will all be returning as playable characters, with Amy also joining the team. Series villain Dr. Eggman will also return alongside D-Fekt. Sega says the game will include a new "Bot Racing" mode that will be tied to the single-player portion of the game but also have multiplayer functionality. In the single-player-only portion of the game, gamers will control their favorite characters and harness the power of fire and ice to complete stages.
That's great and all, but can we go back to the part where the worst selling Sonic game of all time is getting a sequel? For perspective here, the sales for both Sonic Boom games combined totaled roughly 490,000 worldwide. That's more than 300,000 fewer than the previous Sonic game, Sonic Lost World in 2014, and far, far fewer than the 1,850,000 copies of Sonic Generations sold in 2013.
Fan outrage certainly didn't help sale numbers. Sonic and his friends underwent some pretty dramatic character redesigns for Sonic Boom, redesigns that didn't make many fans happy.
So what gives exactly? Why would Sega continue on with a Sonic franchise that seems destined to fail? Your guess is as good as ours. Nintendo and Sega had previously signed a three-game exclusivity deal, one that presumably ended with the release of the last two Sonic Boom titles. It looks like Sega and Nintendo, however, have other plans. You can watch the announcement trailer for Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice below.
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