Sonic boss says there ‘may be a future’ where Sega brings back Nights or Burning Rangers

The head of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has told VGC there “may be a future” where the company brings back dormant Sega series like Nights Into Dreams and Burning Rangers.

In an interview with VGC at Summer Game Fest, we asked Sonic creative officer Takashi Iizuka if the return of 2D Sonic and the recently announced revival of Samba de Amigo could lead to the return of other classic franchises such as Nights or Burning Rangers.

“I can’t say yes to anything right now,” Iizuka replied. “These days I’m the creative officer for Sonic the Hedgehog, so I’m totally focused on that side of the business.

“So I can’t really speak for anyone else, but Sonic Team in Japan has been ramping up and hiring lots of people recently – they have more people than ever. So there may be some future where you’ll be hearing about these kinds of titles.”

Samba de Amigo: Party Central was officially announced for Switch during a Nintendo Direct presentation in February, and will be released on August 29.

The original game was developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega, and was released in arcades in 1999 and on Dreamcast the following year. A Wii port was released in 2008, but Party Central marks the game’s first ‘proper’ sequel.

Further reading

1

Interview: How Sonic Superstars was born from a Zoom drinking party

Sonic creative officer Takashi Iizuka explains why the next sidescrolling game needed to leave 'retro' behind

Last year a Bloomberg report claimed that Sega is working on big-budget reboots of Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio, and that they’ll be the first titles in Sega’s ‘Super Game’ initiative, a five-year strategy involving “the development of AAA titles that cross over Sega’s comprehensive range of technologies”.

Iizuka, who has been working on the Sonic series since the early 1990s when he worked as a designer on Sonic the Hedgehog 3, became Sonic creative officer at Sega of America on April 1.