Sega recently hosted its Sonic Central event, dedicated to announcing newSonic the Hedgehogvideo games. The presentation ended with a brief teaser trailer for thenext main seriesSonic the Hedgehoggame, set to launch in 2022. An official title wasn’t revealed, but Sega itself accidentally leaked the possible titleSonic Rangers, which fans have started to run with. Regardless of whether or notSonic Rangersends up being the real title of the game, it seems that a ton of details have already leaked online.
On July 21, 2025, an anonymous 4chan user posted a write-up for a game they supposedly play-tested calledSonic Rangers. As one might imagine, most fans ignored this supposed “leak” at the time as there was no hard proof to back up any of the claims. But now that thenameSonic Rangershas appeared in an official Sega press release(even if that press release was “outdated” as Sega claims), it gives a lot more credibility to the old leak.
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According to the leak,Sonic Rangersis an open world game inspired byThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The playtester supposedly played a 20 minute long exploration demo as well as a demo that may have featured the game’s final boss. TheSonic Rangersopen world will apparently be populated with “enemies, puzzles, and platforming challenges,” with players able to purchase new skills for Sonic.
Defeating bosses inSonic Rangers' open world will get players orbs, which can then be used to enter a dimension called Cyberspace (this seems to be referenced by theSonic Rangersteaser trailer). In Cyberspace, players complete levels similar to the ones found inSonic Generations, and by beating them fast enough, they will getChaos Emeralds. The Chaos Emeralds are used to fight a boss, which was a “gigantic tree robot thing” according to the playtester.
As far as what the playtester thought about the game, they were not impressed. They said that both exploration and combat were “super boring” and described the game as “button mashy.” They said that they were able totransform into Super Sonicfor the boss fight, but that it too mostly consisted of button mashing. Overall, they acknowledged that the game was clearly early in development but that it was “ROUGH” and “not a fun time.”
BeforeSonicfans get too upset about this write-up, though, they should keep in mind that the game is in the early stages of development and a lot can change between now and when it hits store shelves. It’s also possible that this write-up is inaccurate, so fans should keep that in mind as well. For now,Sonic the Hedgehogfansshould wait for some more official information from Sega.
Sonic the Hedgehogis in development for unspecified platforms for release in 2022.
