Sega’s Sonic Team doesn’t believe that pixel art will be a “viable” art style for future titles

Takashi Iizuka, the head of Sonic Team, has expressed concerns about the future of the traditional pixel art style used in its games, despite its revival over the last decade.

The details:

• Iizuka discussed Sonic Team's decision to continue releasing both 2D and 3D Sonic titles in recent years in a new interview with GamesRadar at Gamescom 2023, with Sonic Frontier arriving in 2022 and Sonic Superstars arriving later this year. "When we talk about the brand, we definitely need to have a modern Sonic 3D game," Iizuka stated. "We also feel we need to have a classic Sonic 2D game. Those are our fundamental pillars that we need to have. We're expanding into movies and TV, but we still need to have both the 3D and the 2D lineup for our gaming audience.”
• The studio head continued, saying that Sonic Frontiers' gameplay is "something we can build on for the next 10-20 years to continue bringing new gameplay experiences to players" for 3D Sonic. He also stated that he believes Superstars is the "evolution of 2D Sonic gameplay," but that pixel art may be on its way out, with Iizuka believing that pixel art will no longer be a "viable" art style "10-20 years in the future.”
• Iizuka did not elaborate on why he believes this is the case, but he previously stated that opting for the traditional art style meant that the studio would "end up targeting a very specific core audience," with Sonic Mania developer revealing that the move to modern 3D graphics for 2D games is one of the reasons why a sequel to Mania was never fully developed.

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