Takashi Iizuka, a key determine in Sega’s Sonic Franchise, instructed IGN’s Jeffrey Vega in regards to the distinctive issue 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 completely 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 own Fortnite skins, in accordance with Sonic Artistic Officer Takashi Iizuka. Fortunately, they have been capable of give you a artistic resolution: Why not make a brand new Sonic variant?
“Epic Video games got here and spoke with us a pair years in the past about placing Sonic in Fortnite, however Sonic is a personality that may by no means maintain a gun,” he instructed us. “And when fascinated by the design of Fortnite, it was actually exhausting to consider Sonic being within the recreation. However this time, we have been capable of take artistic liberties and created Android Sonic.”
In the identical vein as Metallic Sonic, the workforce cooked up an Android model of the character that may be realistically able to utilizing a shotgun, thus permitting a variant of Sonic to be the one doing the capturing as a intelligent workaround.
“As a result of we made this Android model of Sonic, we have been capable of get this Android Sonic into Fortnite, have him maintain a gun, and have him have the ability 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 to ensure that him to suit inside the recreation — most notably, giving him longer legs.
“One of many issues that’s actually necessary in Fortnite is to have the ability to have all of the weapons and gadgets and issues for use amongst all of the completely 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 gadgets and issues to use to your character,” he continued.
“We wanted to have a personality form that’s much like all the opposite Fortnite characters. That was one thing that Epic Video games stated was actually necessary, that we’d like to verify we now have 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 brand new space modeled after Inexperienced Hill Zone. You possibly can take a look at more from our interview with Takashi Iizuka, or compensate for the latest Fortnite news 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 within 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 possibly can observe him on Twitter @jeffreyvega, Instagram, and IGN’s TikTok.