If you guys remember last year, we ran a story that Sonic Forces Super Sonic DLC was free for a limited time, after the initial release (January 23rd) they would be charging users $1.99 to download the ability to turn into Super Sonic. We rightfully complained about this since Super Sonic has been a free unlockable in Sonic the Hedgehog games since the transformation was introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The idea of turning a long running feature of a franchise into a product didn’t sit well with us and other Sonic the Hedgehog fans.
Today the Sonic the Hedgehog social media account has confirmed that Super Sonic DLC is free, forever. Sonic social media guru Aaron Webber posted on his twitter:
“It may seem simple, but a lot of people worked pretty hard to make this change happen over the last month. Really thankful for all of them, and the end result!”
I think what is more concerning is that people like Aaron Webber somehow had to work hard to convince people at SEGA management (UPDATE: Aaron replied, management was on board) that it was a bad idea to charge for a feature that has been, in the past, a staple of the franchise. This became a even worse idea after Sonic Forces released to mixed reviews. One of the main complaints was how little content the game had.
To add more salt to the wound, Super Sonic has been in Sonic Forces since the game launched. It was added into the game via the day one patch. I’m not against SEGA adding more content to Sonic Forces and charging a reasonable price, but some features, like Super Sonic, should always be free. While it sounds like I’m being negative here, I do want to say thanks to Aaron Webber and everyone else working at SEGA that worked to reverse this stupid decision. Hopefully they think it through next time and avoid negative press.
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Yo! Quick correction for you – I mentioned this on Twitter in a response, but thankfully, there was no hard work convincing management to swap things up. Everyone was on the same page and really supportive of the new plan. (It couldn’t have happened otherwise!)
The hard work comes in changing things up after they’re already in motion – lots that has to go on behind-the-scenes to update everything and change all the existing plans.
Thank you very much, Aaron. We fans are so grateful you and your team are there listening when Sega seems not to (even if they come with the “Amazing Sega” and “We’re listening” slogans).
I hope Sega ends up learning some day (we’re glad about this victory, but we still wonder why should we tell Sega that Super Sonic paid DLC was a horrible decision) and doesn’t try anything like this ever again. Sonic needs many right moves (not only making great games like Mania, but also not making decisions like this or renaming Sonic Mobile to Sonic 4) to prevent the character from falling into oblivion.
Again, thanks a lot, Aaron. The Sonic community truly loves you.
Sega has been listening, the fans are just virtually unpleasable. If they hadn’t been listening, they wouldn’t have gone back to the Unleashed formula following people’s disappointment with Lost World, or allowed Mania to happen, or excluded the Werehog gameplay from Unleashed’s follow-ups Colors and Generations, or returned to the Sonic Adventure formula (with Sonic ’06) after the fans demanded it following their disappointment with Heroes and Shadow, or reduced the playable characters to just Sonic after Sonic ’06, or brought back the classic formula with Generations, or agreed to make the Super Sonic DLC permanently free.
what a scam, this was supposed to be there from the go