Takashi Iizuka is on the other side of the world, and yet his smile is infectious even through Skype. He's up early, beaming widely from an office at SEGA of America's Burbank HQ, to speak with journalists who are playing the latest game he's leant his talents to, the incoming co-op kart 'em up Team Sonic Racing. He's producer on the project, mostly working remotely from where the game's been developed, Britain's Sumo Digital.

"Being able to provide games like the racing titles, like Team Sonic Racing, means that we can deliver a different type of gaming experience to a different audience," he tells me, "and actually introduce our character to a lot of different people around the world."

The very idea that a character as famous in gaming asstudio's third racer for the series, and it's also worked on games in SEGA's OutRun and Virtua Tennis franchises), and the makers of 2017's superlative side-on platformer, Sonic Mania - namely PagodaWest Games and Headcannon - rather than any that are active right this minute. But, it's something worth highlighting, in case there's a surprise in store for the coming months. 2019 is a big year for SEGA's most famous son, after all, with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie scheduled for a December release - and what odds on a tie-in game?

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Post-'Sonic Mania', I feel the character, and the games, have really turned a corner...

Iizuka-san feels that Mania was a vital turning point for the Sonic series, after a string of less-than-satisfactory releases that rather peaked, in terms