Burnin’ For The Rangers’ Return?
Courtesy of VGC, we have a little speculation from Sega’s Takashi Iizuka. The Sonic creative officer was speaking to VGC at Summer Games Fest 2023, when a question cropped up about the future of classic Sega games like Nights and Burning Rangers. When asked what the future might hold for older titles like these, Mr. Iizuka said that he couldn’t say for sure – given his focus on Sonic – but he did say that Sonic Team has been having a hiring drive and is larger (in terms of personnel) than ever.
That might be encouraging for diehard Sega fans, if a little thin on its own. Thankfully we don’t have to look just at what Mr. Iizuka said here, because these noises have been coming out of Sega for a while now.
Cast your mind back to 2021 we had the news from Sega’s financial report on Stage-Select. Page 74 of the report Sega discussed a strategy of ‘evaluating older dormant IPs and their potential for a remaster, remake or reboot.’ This sort of thing would be a long process, but we’ve probably already seen the start of Sega’s efforts with Sonic Origins and Samba Di Amiga Party Central (mentioned in the VGC article).
We can only hope that Sega embraces their many older games—some comprehensive Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Shining Force and Phantasy Star collections would be very welcome, and don’t even get me started on new games in any of these franchises.
