Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuki doesn’t see a futur🐻e for pixel art in Sonic games. In for So💞nic Superstars, Iizuki described the upcoming Sonic Superstars as an “evolution of the 2D Sonic gameplay” and said “we look at the pixel art - it’s great - but when we think about ten to 20 years in the future, we don’t think it’s going to be a viable art style or presentation for our players.”
My initial reaction, as I’m sure many people will also have, was one of disgust. How can Sonic Team completely turn its back on legacy? Have we already forgotten what a critical success Sonic Maꦜnia was? Surely pixel art would be dead already if it was ever going t🍃o go out of fashion. People have been predicting the death of pixel art since Super Mario 64, yet we’re still getting stunning pixel art games that people love like Sea of Stars, Cassette Beasts, and Pizza Tower.
But then I remembered that I’m an old man, and someday soon they’re going to have to stop🌄 making games for me.
Video games haven’t been around for very long. The first Sonic games launched on the Genesis in 1991, and it was one of the first games I ever played as a toddler (and by played I mean put the controller in my mouth, probably). I’m still a Sonic fan, often regrettably, and I must admit that I feel like my loyalty to Sonic should be worth something. The aforementioned Sonic Mania was a game made for the fans, by the fans, but it’s appropriate that tha𝕴t game would be a final farewell to classic Sonic,ౠ not a rebirth.
When Iizuki ta🎃lks about the next ten to 20 years, he’s talking about making games for kids that haven’t even been born yet. He’s talking about Sonic fans that saw the movies before they ever played the games, and people whose first Sonic game will be Sonic Superstars. Pixel art is beautiful, but would I have this strong of an attachment to it if I didn’t grow up with it? Probably not. The way I feel about pixel art is the way people will feel about Sonic S🌌uperstars’ style in 20 years.
Most modern pixel art games are leveraging nostalgia the same way Sonic Mania did in order to appeal to fans of a bygone era of gaming. All of the aforementioned examples are heavily retro-inspired, both in their art style and their design. So much of what makes Sea of Stars work is that it’s a love letter to Chrono Trigger, and while you needn’t have played the SNES classic to enjoy Sea of Stars, there’s no denying that it’s a game made for Millennials in the style of the games they grew up with. In 20 years, 30-somethi𒁃ngs will have nostalgia for a completel൲y different kind of game.
I don’t think pixel art will ever die completely. One of the strengths of games as a medium is the inexhaustible variety of aesthetics game makers can pull from, and the pixel style will always appeal to some artists and players. But as time moves on, pixel art will naturally lose some of its meaning. A massive, never-ending franchise like Sonic has to keep up with the times and continuously draw in and appeal to new fans. As much as it hurts to ad☂mit, Sonic is better off without pixel art.