Sonic’s Next 3D Game Will Be Apple Arcade Exclusive At Launch

Sonic Dream Team_Key Art

3D Sonic games have been a little bit… all over the place, to say the least, in recent years. And by recent years, I mean basically for as long as they’ve existed, the last 25 years or so. Some games are better than others, and some games are much, much worse. But there’s a new 3D Sonic game on the horizon, and fans are actually pretty excited for it.

It’s called Sonic Dream Team, and at launch it’ll be an Apple Arcade exclusive. That’s a bit of a bummer, because it means you’ll have to get your hands on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV if you don’t have one already. If you do, though, all you need to do is subscribe to Apple Arcade for $7 a month, and you’ll be able to play as much as you want.

We actually don’t know all that much about Sonic Dream Team, just what we see in the very short announcement trailer. It looks to be a fairly straightforward – but very polished – 3D Sonic game, with multiple different playable characters each with their own unique abilities: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, and the best Sonic character, Cream the Rabbit.

According to the game’s App Store description, Sonic and friends will be leaping into “a bizarre world of dreams” that contains “mind-bending dream worlds that contain wall-running, gravity changes, and more.” As you’d expect, you’ll be facing off against Eggman, and apparently for control of an ancient artifact that can make any dream come true.

It all looks pretty great! The graphics are nice, what little we see of the gameplay and level design looks good, and it isn’t a gigantic, empty open world like Sonic Frontiers was. If the trailer is anything to go by, this could be the first truly great 3D Sonic game — but that’s a very big if.

Sonic Dream Team is being developed by Sega HARDlight, a British subsidiary of Sega that also developed Sonic Jump, Sonic Dash, and ChuChu Rocket! Universe, all of which were received pretty well. Dream Team does seem to be a bit bigger in scope than previous titles from the studio, but if the team can translate its prior experience with Sonic to this game effectively, fans will be in for a treat.

Related: Sega Now Owns Angry Birds

Sonic Dream Team will launch exclusively on Apple Arcade on December 5, 2023. It’s not known if or when it’s likely to come to other platforms in the future, but a lot of Apple Arcade games do find themselves on Switch and PC eventually, so there’s hope.