Takashi Iizuka, a key determine in Sega’s Sonic Franchise, instructed IGN’s Jeffrey Vega concerning the distinctive problem the corporate confronted in giving the Blue Blur a playable pores and skin in Fortnite.
Whereas Shadow is considerably well-known for being an edgy, pistol-toting anti-hero, Sonic is a completely totally different character. The yang to Shadow’s yin, Sonic is an upbeat hedgehog who makes use of his extraordinarily quick velocity (and infrequently, the facility of the Chaos Emeralds) to take down enemies.
That’s why Sega balked when it was first approached by Epic video games with the thought of giving Shadow and Sonic their very own Fortnite skins, in accordance to Sonic Creative Officer Takashi Iizuka. Fortunately, they had been in a position to provide you with a inventive answer: Why not make a new Sonic variant?
“Epic Video games got here and spoke with us a couple years in the past about placing Sonic in Fortnite, however Sonic is a character that may by no means maintain a gun,” he instructed us. “And when interested by the design of Fortnite, it was actually exhausting to take into consideration Sonic being in the sport. However this time, we had been in a position to take inventive liberties and created Android Sonic.”
In the identical vein as Metallic Sonic, the workforce cooked up an Android model of the character that will be realistically able to utilizing a shotgun, thus permitting a variant of Sonic to be the one doing the taking pictures as a intelligent workaround.
“As a result of we made this Android model of Sonic, we had been in a position to get this Android Sonic into Fortnite, have him maintain a gun, and have him have the opportunity to actually play inside Fortnite and be built-in into the sport,” Iizuka defined.
This week’s Store goes full journey mode 👀 pic.twitter.com/thT6CMd7Vq
— Fortnite (@Fortnite) August 20, 2026
After all, this meant altering his design a bit in order for him to match throughout the recreation — most notably, giving him longer legs.
“One of many issues that’s actually necessary in Fortnite is to have the opportunity to have all of the weapons and objects and issues to be used amongst all of the totally different characters. So, if we had our common model of Sonic in there, it actually wouldn’t work. Like, you could not use all of the objects and issues to apply to your character,” he continued.
“We would have liked to have a character form that’s related to all the opposite Fortnite characters. That was one thing that Epic Video games stated was actually necessary, that we want to be certain we’ve the identical shapes as all the opposite characters. And from there, it was actually working with the Epic Video games workforce on ensuring the Android model actually felt like a Sonic character however nonetheless match the necessities of what the physique proportions and shapes wanted to be.”
Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Knuckles, and even Dr. Eggman can be found in Fortnite, together with a new space modeled after Inexperienced Hill Zone. You’ll be able to take a look at extra from our interview with Takashi Iizuka, or atone for the newest Fortnite information right here.
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s Information Editor. With ten years of expertise reporting on video games and leisure, she’s obtained a storied background in the combating recreation neighborhood, influencer information, and viral on-line tendencies. Discover her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
Jeffrey Vega is the Lead Social Host/Producer at IGN and might be feeding his neopets proper now. You’ll be able to observe him on Twitter @jeffreyvega, Instagram, and IGN’s TikTok.