Yesterday's Sonic Central broadcast gave fans a lot to get excited about, with a new Sonic Frontiers update and another look at Sonic Superstars. It also gave us something to point and laugh at in the form of Metal Sonic's redesign for Sonic Prime, which is pretty awful. But best of all, it gave us a phrase you're either going to love or absolutely despise: the Sonic Cinematic Universe.
Yup, because every franchise ever needs a shared universe that's connected by a billion different spin-offs and straight-to-streaming TV shows, Sega is officially referring to Sonic's non-gaming offerings as a cinematic universe. Right up there with the MCU, the SCU contains the films and the upcoming Knuckles TV show. But the fact that it's being called a full-blown universe suggests that many more projects are on the way too.
This phrase came towards the end of the Sonic Central broadcast, with chief brand and business officer Ivo Gerscovich saying that the upcoming Knuckles show will be set in the "cinematic universe of Sonic the Hedgehog."
While it's always been clear that Sega is eager to expand Sonic outside of games - something it certainly hasn't shied away from in the past - it's now clear it sees these TV shows and films as a full-blown cinematic universe. This also acts as a way to differentiate them from the game canon, since this is quite different from what we see in the films. Fingers crossed, this doesn't mean Sega's about to jump on the multiverse trend. I mean, the devs kinda beat everyone to the punch with Sonic Generations anyway.
In the broadcast, Gerscovich makes it clear that the team is, "working hard to expand Sonic's horizons." Despite this, there were no real updates on the next film, Sonic 3, or the Knuckles show - just being told that they're still aiming for premieres in late 2024 and holiday 2023 respectively. It's not clear when we'll get a trailer for either of these, especially with the Knuckles show seemingly not too far away from us, barring a delay.
Cinematic universes aside, Sonic Central mostly focused on the games. After the showcase wrapped up, the Sonic Frontiers update that it showed off went live, introducing new challenges, gameplay mechanics, and cosmetics. Fans also datamined proof that other characters are on the way, so we can probably expect that with the next free DLC. We don't know when that will be, but as we've seen from the last two expansions, they can be added with little notice.