Sonic Colors: Ultimate (American English) (ソニックカラーズ アルティメット Sonikku Karāzu Arutimetto?) or Sonic Colours: Ultimate (British English), is an enhanced remaster of the Wii version of Sonic Colors. It is set to be released on 7 September 2021 both physically and digitally for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One consoles, and as a digital-only release on for PC via the Epic Games Store in most countries and on 9 September in Japan. It can also be played on Xbox Series X and Series S and PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility. If players opt for the Digital Deluxe version of the game, they will instead receive the game on 3 September 2021.
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Development[]
According to Sega, the reasons why Sonic Colors was chosen to get remastered was because of the increase of new and younger fans since Sonic Mania, Sonic Forces and Team Sonic Racing, as well as the success of the 2020 movie. Since Sonic Colors was a rather successful game on its original hardware, it was seen as the ideal game to serve as the continuation for the aforementioned fans. However, since it never left the Wii and Nintendo DS going forward, it was decided to make a remaster of it. In addition, new features were added to help beginner players play the game. In an interview with "Famitsu" magazine Takashi Iizuka said Sonic Colors: Ultimate was named this way because it is intended to be the definitive version of Sonic Colors that includes many features that were missing in the original.
Sonic Colors: Ultimate was primarily developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the staff working on the game from home. However, according to director Aaron Roseman, it only took the staff a few weeks to adapt to those changes. According to Roseman, it game also does not use all the technical features of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, but that it runs very well on both consoles.
When it came to "translating" Sonic Colors from a Wii game (whose console was all about motion controls) to another game pack, the developers made use of the format in the original Sonic Colors that supported the standard game controller and "mimicked" the button layer from there over to Sonic Colors: Ultimate.
Promotion[]
Rumors about a remastered edition of Sonic Colors began circulating in April 2021 when said game was found listed in the portfolio of the German dubbing studio, IK Sample (which is also the same studio that dubs the Sonic games in German). The game was later officially announced during the Sonic Central video presentation on 27 May 2021 that showcased news regarding the Sonic the Hedgehog 30th Anniversary celebration. Among these announcements were also the announcement trailer for this game.
On 28 May, 3D artist Brian Connelly, who worked on shaders and VFX, shared his work on ArtStation. One of the examples features interface element of open-source engine Godot, possibly meaning this is the engine the game is now built on. This lines up with a LinkedIn profile of a Blind Squirrel Games developer which mentions an open-source engine.
