Maybe a little later than we expected, but still we’ve finally gotten the first details of Sonic Team’s upcoming mobile game Sonic Runners. SEGA released a teaser trailer for the game, but it doesn’t show anything from the game aside from one of its music tracks, which is seemingly composed by Tomoya Ohtani. According to the game’s official site, it’ll be a free game with microtransactions that’ll be released for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android phones. The above promotional image also shows that Chao will make a return, that Windy Hill is one of the game’s worlds and that Mother Wisp from Sonic Colours DS is in the game for some reason.
Famitsu has given more details on what we can expect from the game, which Andrej from the Sonic Stadium has translated. The playable characters are Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, with more to be added later. Graphically it’s comparable to Sonic 4, as the game is played from a 2D perspective but uses 3D graphics. And while Sonic will run forwards automatically like in Sonic Dash, it won’t be an endless runner. Instead the game will have 50 stages with more that will be added later on, each of which take up to two minutes to finish. You’ll also be able to take multiple/hidden paths to get faster times. Aside from that, the game will have a story that’ll be split into short scenarios, with some of them having callbacks to older games.
There’ll parts throughout the game where Eggman pops up and has to be driven off, and the Colour Powers from Sonic Colours and Lost World also make a return. You’ll also be able to use support characters, and if you happen to live in Japan you can sign up to get a “special companion” when the game is released. Finally, you’ll also be able to compare times on leaderboards and there will be special in-game events during holidays like Christmas. Sonic Runners will be released this Spring in Japan, and seemingly soon after in the rest of the world.