While not as unanimously adored as Mario, people still have a lot of time for ye olde Sonic the Hedgehog. New games release frequently, and while the forthcoming live action film has proved... divisive, it demonstrates that Sega is still dedicated to the old blue thing. Today comes more proof of that, with Sega announcing its Sonic 2020 initiative.

Basically, the company has promised (via a press release posted on this Japanese site) that new Sonic news will issue on the 20th day of every month in 2020. There's also a portal site, though that's also in Japanese. There's every possibility that some of the forthcoming news will be specific to Japan, but if there are any game announcements among them, they'll likely come west, too.

If you do click through to that portal site, you'll get access to wallpapers and fancy Sonic Twitter icons, the latter handy if you want to show more credibility in the heat of a Twitter debate. There's also key art for the initiative, which you can see below.

That Sonic the Hedgehog movie hits cinemas in February, for your information.

If you've ever thought to yourself that life is good but it could use more hedgehog, the Humble Store is here to help. The Humble Sonic Bundle 2019 is a hefty collection of blue spiny Erinaceinae, beginning with Sonic Adventure 2, the Sonic Adventure 2 Battle DLC, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Sonic CD, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – Episode 1, and Sonic Adventure DX, for $1.

If you have more dollars than just one, Humble has more games than just those. Beat the average price and you'll also get Sonic Generations and the Casino Night DLC, Sonic Lost World, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – Episode 2, and Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing. And for a tenner, you can top it off with Sonic Mania, the Sonic Mania Encore DLC, and Sonic Forces.

That's a whole lot of Sonic, and thankfully none of them will expose you to the nightmare visage of this. (Which, in case you missed it, is now this—a reminder that sometimes, delays are a good thing.) 

On a not-really-related note, but since we're talking about Sonic, I'd just like to say that it will never not be weird to me that, between the original Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare released a Sonic the Hedgehog game. It's like Zeppelin doing jingles for Denny's between Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti or something. (Although in all fairness, Sonic Chronicle is actually quite good. But that doesn't mean it's not weird.)

Anyway, back to the matter at hand: The Humble Sonic Bundle 2019 is available until December 17 and funds raised will go to support Whale and Dolphin Conservation, although you can select a different charity if you like—believe it or not, there are actually multiple hedgehog rescue and preservation charities to choose from if you really to stick with the theme.

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Sonic the Hedgehog's new trailer is here, unveiling a more palatable version of Sonic that won't haunt your nightmares for the rest of your life. Gone are the human teeth—thank god—and the creepy, realistic nose and beady eyes. It's a big improvement.

Originally due out this year, the reaction to the first trailer and Sonic's horrifying new look was so overwhelmingly negative that it was delayed until 2020 to give the studio time to redesign the blue monster.  

Jim Carrey still looks like he should be tying women to railroad tracks, but it's not a look I'm entirely opposed to. At least he's not got hedgehog teeth. 

Sonic the Hedgehog is due out in theatres on February 14. 

While some companies take an antagonistic stance on fan-games, Sega is notable for their live-and-let-live approach to creative Sonic The Hedgehog fans. It's even gone as far as hiring some of them, resulting in the excellent Sonic Mania. Left to their own devices, their community have even organised their own annual amateur games expo online. Last week the Sonic Amateur Games Expo 2019 hosted dozens of releases. Many are fan-games, but there's some entirely new properties, and even an early demo from one of Sonic Mania's lead developers. Take a peek at some of them in the medley trailer below.

Among the more notable releases is the "technical preview" demo of Vertebreaker, giving eager players a first taste of the next project by Simon "Stealth" Thomley (aka Headcannon), one of Sonic Mania's lead devs. It's a clever looking platformer about a skeleton with a stretchy bone whip that doubles as a grappling hook, bungee cord and weapon. There's an expanded demo and a Kickstarter due on Halloween, but you can take an early peek into the bone zone here on the game's SAGE page.

Other notable SAGE 2019 releases include a demo for the charming Brock Crocodile, a very Mega Drive-inspired mascot platformer. The Mega Man ZX-inspired Starbuster is also well worth a shot, as slicing robots clean in two with a laser sword never gets old. Dunkehr is an aggressive platform brawler starring an armoured badger with a bit of Dark Souls spirit, too.

It's not all platformers and animal-themed protagonists either. XF Drive is a 3D racing game inspired by Sega's arcade heyday, and Rodea Eternal is a fan-game tribute to Rodea: The Sky Soldier, a little-known Wii game designed by Yuji Naka, former head of Sonic Team. There's plenty to chew on here, although much of it has a distinctly old-school Sega flavour to it.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. You can check out all the SAGE 2019 releases on the expo games page here.

The reveal of the live-action movie version of Sonic the Hedgehog earlier this year was either hilarious or catastrophic, depending on your level of interest in the movie and its success at the box office. Paramount obviously has very great interest in seeing the movie succeed, and the backlash was so strong that a month after the grand unveiling it hit the brakes on the whole thing so it could rejigger the blue speedster.

That was a major move, and obviously not one taken lightly, but producer Tim Miller said in an interview with Variety that it was the right thing to do. "Look, I was with fans and so was Jeff [Fowler, director of the film]. When the shit hit the fan, I went over there and said, 'The most important thing to do, man, is say, ‘I fucked up'," Miller said.

"He’d already sent a tweet out an hour before I got there. He’s a good man. It was exactly the right way to handle that. The fans have a voice in this too. There’s a right way to listen."

The updated Sonic design hasn't been released publicly yet, but Miller has seen them. "And I think the fans will be pleased," he said.

Obviously he's going to say that—movie producers don't generally admit up-front that their films are going to suck—but in this case I'm just about ready to take him at his word. One advantage of a disastrous first impression is that you can only go up from there, and it's not as if they don't have a well-established Sonic design to work with. Ditch the teeth, goggle-ify the eyes, maybe do something about those freaky legs, and you're pretty much done. Right?

Sonic the Hedgehog, about a cop in the rural town of Green Hills who helps Sonic escape from government agents seeking to track him down for purposes that I bet are nefarious, is now slated to come out on February 14, 2020.

The leggy first poster for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie was "creepy as hell," and the first trailer did not improve the situation. Different people had different issues—more than a few complained that Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik looked more like lazy Josef Stalin cosplay—but the number one problem, by a country mile, was Sonic himself. 

Unlike his classic arcade physique, the beefy legs and trim torso of his live-action rendering looked like Usain Bolt in desperate need of a shave and wardrobe advice. (Shoes but no pants? Come on.) That was bad enough, but the face is where it really went wrong. A thousand memes were launched. None of them good. 

(This one's pretty good, though.)

In light of all that, director Jeff Fowler said in early May that the character would be redesigned, a task that we noted would be "quite massive" this late in the process. And sure enough, today Fowler revealed that the rework would result in a delay, from November of this year to February 14, 2020.

Three months doesn't seem like a lot of time to overhaul a central component of a major studio flick, but then again I have no idea how much time such a process would actually require, or what's even being done: One PCGer, who will go unnamed, suggested that Paramount could be taking the time to make Sonic look even worse (Smaller eyes, bigger teeth?) as an "in your face" to people who don't appreciate the subtle, near-psychedelic qualities that Weird Sonic would bring to the oeuvre. I have my doubts, but however it works out, at least we'll always have the memes.

People loath the new Sonic film trailer. When it comes to soulless and opportunistic game-to-film adaptations, it's hard to remember anything prompting quite this much outrage (although maybe that's because it's 2019 and everyone is really angry all the time). 

It's easy to understand the reception: the Sonic in the forthcoming film doesn't look much like the Sonic of old. In my opinion, for what it's worth, he does at least look a bit more like a hedgehog than before. But that doesn't make the new design any less... terrifying. 

The outcry hasn't been lost on the film's director Jeff Fowler, who has taken to Twitter and promised to change the design. This is not insignificant: while it'd be easier to retro-fit CG graphics rather than, say, Jim Carrey's Eggman character (who looks just fine), for a director to make such drastic changes after an expensive promotional trailer has been released, and after the film's titular "iconic" character has been revealed, is quite massive.

"Thank you for the support. And the criticism," Fowler wrote. "The message is loud and clear... you aren't happy with the design and you want changes. It's going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be..."

It's hard to imagine there being any enduring artistic value in the Sonic film, but then, maybe there will be. Either way, it's weird to see a director so quickly cave to the demands of vocal internet fans. Stand your ground! Maybe the new Sonic design means something to you. Or maybe he looks like that for another valid reason. Maybe we're meant to hate film Sonic. Either way, it's changing. 

Sonic The Hedgehog's official movie trailer is out now—watch it above—and it's quite the thing. Everything is just not quite right, as though the idea of Sonic has been described to someone who has never played a Sonic game. Sonic doesn't even do one loop-the-loop.

The trailer, inexplicably accompanied by Gangsta's Paradise, also gives us our first official look at Jim Carrey's Dr. "Eggman" Robotnik. Wiry Carrey doesn't resemble the megalomaniac, but he does at least look utterly bizarre. It seems like he's trying to channel manic '90s Carrey, but the clips from the trailer aren't promising. It's Jim Carrey doing an OK Jim Carrey impression. With a moustache.

Eventually he'll look a bit more like Eggman, however. 

There's a lot to work through—why are rings portals? Twitter is currently obsessed with the fact that Sonic has human teeth, which is admittedly quite unsettling. Poor Sonic, he seems to look worse every time we see him. Thank goodness hedgehogs only live for a few years.

Sonic The Hedgehog is due out this November. Relive the hedgehog's halcyon days in our round up of every Sonic game ranked for some reason & Knuckles.

Back in December the first marketing image for the Sonic the Hedgehog live action film released, and it received mixed reviews. Many thought it was funny, many others thought it was terrifying, and very few (for all I can tell), fell head over heels in love with it. The image depicted a silhouette of a very buff Sonic, and I suppose no one is used to Sonic looking so weirdly masculine.

Fast forward a couple of months, and now the first full-body, non-silhouetted illustration of Sonic has leaked via a film branding company called Hamagami / Carroll, Inc. Someone uploaded a style guide for the Sonic the Hedgehog film onto that company's website, and while it's since been removed, nothing is ever properly removed from the internet. 

That image above is, uh, Sonic. He never looked heaps like a hedgehog, but now he looks more like a magical anime cat. His eyes are penetrating and his fist looks primed to punch us in the face. Perhaps we deserve to be punched in the face by a hedgehog, for all the mean things we said about his silhouette last December. Maybe that's what the Sonic movie is all about, now.

Alongside that image and several others (via Resetera, see below) arrived some interesting insight into Sonic's psyche via a "brand personality" document. According to that doc, Sonic is "irreverent and sarcastic", "heroic and adventurous", "confident and competitive", "chill and likable", "mischievous but not malicious". He's also not on Tinder, sadly.

The Sonic the Hedgehog film is slated for a November release. 

Last week, we got our first-ever look at the deeply disturbing legs of Sonic the Hedgehog as he will appear in the live-action film that was announced in May. This week, to help you get over that visual agony, the Humble Store has launched a new bundle of games featuring the go-fast blue hedgehog—with appropriately skinny limbs. 

At the $1 level, you'll get Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, Sonic Adventure DX, Sonic CD, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, Sonic Adventure 2, and the Sonic Adventure 2: Battle DLC. Beat the average, which is currently heading toward the $7 mark, and you'll add Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection, Sonic: Lost World, Sonic Generations Collection, and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 2. And finally, if you top out at $15, you'll finish the collection with Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces. 

As always, you can divide your payment up between Sega, Humble, and the charity of your choice as you see fit. The Humble Sonic Bundle until January 1, 2019. 

Just kidding about helping you get over the visual agony, by the way. Pow! 

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