Sonic The Hedgehog had a rough year in 2014. Sonic Boom for Wii U and 3DS didn’t stand up to the hype and were not well received. Accompanied with abysmal sales numbers, Sonic seems to be back to his old ways again. One thing that’s always constant with the Blue Blur is that he always bounces back and a new title in the franchise could be set for this year.

The Sonic Stadium has been doing some digging the past few days and has uncovered something interesting. When viewing the website for the German voice actor of Orbot, Romanus Fuhrman, they noticed an interesting credit for a game called Sonic Mach 2. In German, the credit translates to  “Game by SEGA” and that the role was Orbot. Iksample was the studio in which this voice credit was recorded who have a history with working with SEGA on games like Sonic Generations and Boom, Aliens: Colonial Marines and the Total War franchise.

While this this story is teetering on the edge of rumor territory, it has some decent evidence to back it up. Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka, when talking to a fan online, did confirm that the game could be real, saying to wait for an official announcement. Iizuka also stated that this title wasn’t being developed by Sonic Team, who released Sonic Runners on IOS and Android just a few months ago. At this point it is believed that Sonic Mach 2 is (somewhat) real but the name could be a place holder as of now.

There have been many developers of Sonic games over the years. Sonic Team, Dimps, Sanzaru Games and even the illustrious Bioware all have taken a stab at making a Sonic title. The most likely candidates could be either Dimps, who created the Sonic Advance and Rush series on GBA and DS respectively, or Hardlight Studios, creators of Sonic Dash and Sonic Jump on mobile devices. Dimps hasn’t created a Sonic game since Sonic Lost World on 3DS back in 2013, giving a decent 2-3 year development period for Sonic Mach 2. Or Hardlight Studios could be creating a successor to Sonic Dash, the free-to-play endless runner on mobile devices. At this point it could even be a sequel to Sonic and All-stars Racing Transformer for all we know!

With E3 fast approaching, will Sonic Mach 2 make an appearance? With Sonic’s 25th anniversary next year, E3 would be a great time to reveal the franchises next installment. Although SEGA of America won’t have a booth this year, they could release a trailer or even have a demo set up at a Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft booth. Or it could be just a rumor, who knows. We’ll certainly know in just a few short weeks!

Information and images sourced from Sonic Stadium