Sonic Turns 30 This Year, and Sega is Celebrating With Tons of New Stuff

Mario may be turning 35 in 2020, but his younger rival is about to celebrate a big milestone as well. First appearing in 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog is about to celebrate 30 years in the gaming world. And it seems like Sega has some pretty substantial plans for the Blue Blur. Starting with a big project with Dark Horse Comics later this year, Sonic’s 30th birthday is going to be full of new merchandise, and other big news for the character.

This first wave of announcements from Sega concerning Sonic the Hedgehog’s 30th anniversary all include merchandise and other goodies associated with Sega’s speedy mascot. All of this stuff is slated to start showing up starting in December 2020 at the earliest. Some of this stuff is simply continuations of current brand partnerships, while others are quite new.

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The marquee item here is the Sonic Encyclo-Speed-Ia, a huge, hardcover chronicle of almost every Sonic the Hedgehog game to date. This tome appears to be similar to Dark Horse’s similar treatment for Mario, so you can expect a ton of detail, high-quality images, and more fun stuff to read over.

Multiple lines of collectible merchandise will be kicking off or continuing soon. This includes a new line of figures from Funkp, and a continuing partnership with Jakks Pacific for toys. If you’re into collecting FiGPiN, you may be excited to know a line of Sonic the Hedgehog figures/pins will be landing this winter.

If you want to wear some Sonic to partake in the birthday celebrations, a line of jewelry from King Ice and a whole bunch of new apparel and accessories from Graph Gaming will be landing in 2021. G Fuel is also releasing a limited edition, peach-flavored drink in a collector’s box (???) in 2021 as well.

Finally, the folks behind the successful IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic series are going to launch a new miniseries for the 30th anniversary, this time featuring “classic” Sonic in addition to the regular run.

If you’re more interested in seeing what the video game side of Sonic has been up to since Team Sonic Racing and Sonic Forces, Sega has also noted it will have more announcements in “additional categories” in the coming months. Hopefully that includes a new game, especially since the timeline for in-house Sonic games has been significantly changed for quality reasons. We’d love to see the end result there!

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Are you excited for all these various gaming anniversaries hitting around the same time? What about Sonic’s in particular? Let us know over at the Prima Games Twitter and Facebook channels!