Sonic Team’s own mobile runner: classic side-on running and jumping, a huge cast and dozens of buddies, undone by its ads and paywalls and switched off after barely a year.
Soft launch26 Feb 2015 (Japan, Canada)
Released25 Jun 2015 (worldwide)
DeveloperSonic Team
ProducerTakashi Iizuka
MusicTomoya Ohtani
Available?No: servers shut down 27 July 2016
Title
Sonic Runners (Sonikku Rannāzu)
Platforms
iOS, Android
Developer
Sonic Team
Publisher
Sega
Producer
Takashi Iizuka
Director
Takao Hirabayashi
Designers
Takayuki Okada, Takeshi Yamazaki, Jyunpei Ootsu
Artist
Sachiko Kawamura
Programmer
Kentarou Tomii
Music
Tomoya Ohtani
Genre
Side-scrolling endless runner, free to play
Players
1 (always online)
Soft launch
26 February 2015 (Japan and Canada)
Released (worldwide)
25 June 2015
Discontinued
Red Ring sales ended 27 May 2016; servers shut down 27 July 2016
Availability
No longer playable: the game needed a constant connection to Sega’s servers
Overview
Where Hardlight’s Sonic Dash runs into the screen, Sonic Runners goes back to the side view. Sonic runs automatically from left to right through loops, springs and cannons, you tap to jump, and the aim is to last as long as possible, banking rings at checkpoints, collecting crystals for points and Wisps for special powers, and dodging Dr. Eggman when he swoops in for a boss fight.
It was made by Sonic Team itself, the series’ home studio, as its first Sonic game made only for smartphones, with Takashi Iizuka producing and Tomoya Ohtani writing the music. Free to play and constantly updated, it built up a remarkable cast: more than twenty playable characters and costumes over its life, from Shadow and Blaze to Mephiles, the Werehog and Sticks, plus a menagerie of “buddies” that ranged from Chao and Wisps to Chip and the Death Egg.
It did not last. Critics liked the running but loathed the pop-up ads, roulette wheels and paid continues, Sega’s own figures labelled it a stalling title, and the servers were switched off on 27 July 2016. Because it needed a constant connection, the official game cannot be played at all today.
Sonic in play.Knuckles in play.A Zazz Raid event with Zavok.
Run, Jump and Aim for the Top!
The one-line pitch Sega gave the game in the description of its English website, still online in the Wayback Machine’s copy from 27 May 2016, the day Red Ring sales ended.
— Official description: Sega, Sonic Runners official website (sonicrunners.sega-net.com/en/), meta description quoted.
Quick Answers
The short answers, with the detail further down the page.
When did Sonic Runners come out?
It soft-launched in Japan and Canada on 26 February 2015 and was released worldwide on 25 June 2015. More →
Who made it?
Sonic Team, with Takashi Iizuka producing. It was the studio’s first Sonic game made only for smartphones. More →
Can I still play it?
No. Sega shut the servers down on 27 July 2016, and the game will not run without them. A fan project has since rebuilt a server, but that is unofficial. More →
How is it different from Sonic Dash?
It is side-on and 2D, you tap to jump rather than swipe, and runs are split into stages with checkpoints instead of one endless track. More →
Who could you play as?
Sonic to begin with, then a long list unlocked over time, including Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Blaze, Silver, Rouge, Big, Cream, the Chaotix and Classic Sonic. More →
Was it a success?
No. It was downloaded more than five million times on Google Play, but Sega called it a stalling title earning ¥30–50 million a month and closed it within about a year of release. More →
Is there a sequel?
Gameloft’s Sonic Runners Adventure (2017), a paid game rather than a free one. More →
Plot / Story
Dr. Eggman.
Sonic Runners told its story in episodes, through text scenes you could skip. It mostly served as a tutorial: each step along a world map taught a new trick, handed out a reward such as bonus rings, or opened a special mission such as a boss fight with Dr. Eggman, who drops obstacles in your path and makes the run harder each time you beat him.
Events added their own villains. Luke’s screenshot gallery shows Zazz Raid events featuring Zavok and Zeena of the Deadly Six from Sonic Lost World, and seasonal updates brought Halloween and Christmas costumes.
How it plays
Your runner never stops; one tap jumps. Loops, cannons, springboards and floating platforms fill each stage, along with power-ups: invincibility, Wisps that grant short-lived powers, rings that protect you as usual, and crystals that push up your score. Passing a checkpoint banks your rings, and a run ends when you are hit with no rings or fall into a pit. Levelling up a character improves how well they run.
Unlike Sonic Dash, the game is divided into separate stages rather than one endless road, and it added replayability with missions, alternate paths and a story mode, which Sonic Team felt most endless runners lacked.
Up to two buddies could tag along on a run to boost you. They began as Chao, but Sonic Team added surprises, from Chip of Sonic Unleashed to Caliburn, an Ideya from NiGHTS, Boo, a remote-control hovercraft and even the Death Egg, as Luke’s gallery of buddy art shows.
Two currencies drove everything. Ordinary rings bought single-use items and power-ups; Red Rings, earned slowly or bought, paid for continues. A daily roulette wheel handed out buddies and other prizes, landing on “big” or “super” upgraded the wheel, and extra spins were for sale. Critics found the whole system exhausting.
Chip.Gold Chao.The Death Egg.Caliburn.
In comics, TV & other media
Sonic Runners sits between Sega’s other mobile Sonic games and a fan-run afterlife. More in Sonic in other movies and media.
Sonic DashHardlight · 2013The 3D, into-the-screen runner that critics compared it with; TouchArcade thought Runners the better game.
Sonic Runners AdventureGameloft · 2017Gameloft’s paid follow-up. Android players in Russia and the UK got it first, in June 2017, and everyone else, on iOS and Android, in December.
Sonic Runners Original SoundtrackiTunes · 2015Tomoya Ohtani’s score in two digital volumes, released on 24 June and 25 December 2015.
Fan revivalUnofficial · 2019Fans reverse-engineered the game and built their own client and server; an open beta was announced for July 2019.
Characters
Sonic Team kept adding runners, each with abilities of their own, plus costumes for holidays and anniversaries. The art is from Sonic Scene’s own galleries.
Character
Who they are
In this game
Stats & abilities
Sonic the HedgehogStarting runner
The hero, back in a side-on Sonic game made by Sonic Team.
Everyone starts as Sonic; the rest of the cast is unlocked over time.
Default runner
Miles “Tails” ProwerRunner
Sonic’s best friend.
Like every runner, he brings abilities of his own.
Unlockable
Knuckles the EchidnaRunner
Guardian of the Master Emerald.
Joins Sonic and Tails among the playable cast.
Unlockable
Amy RoseRunner
Sonic’s admirer.
Also appeared in an Amitie outfit and a gothic costume, both pictured in our gallery.
Several costumes
Shadow the HedgehogRunner
The ultimate life form.
Later joined by a Halloween version.
Seasonal costume
Blaze the CatRunner
Princess of another dimension.
One of the many added runners.
Unlockable
Silver the HedgehogRunner
The psychic hedgehog from the future.
Also available in an ESP variant.
Two versions
Classic SonicAdded 26 June 2015
The original 1991 Sonic, as seen in Sonic Generations.
Added the day after worldwide launch to celebrate Sonic’s 24th anniversary.
Anniversary character
The ChaotixRunners
Vector, Espio and Charmy, the detective agency.
All three joined the roster.
Team artwork from our gallery
TikalRunner
The ancient echidna from Sonic Adventure.
One of the runners added over the game’s life.
Unlockable
MephilesRunner
The villain of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
Turned up as a playable runner.
Model from our gallery
Sonic the WerehogRunner
Sonic’s night-time form from Sonic Unleashed.
Another playable variant of Sonic.
Model from our gallery
Dr. EggmanBoss
Sonic’s arch-enemy.
Ambushes the runner in boss fights, dropping objects; beating him raises the difficulty.
Recurring boss
More runners and buddies
Other characters and buddies from Luke’s galleries.
Big the CatRunnerSonic Adventure’s fisherman joins the roster.
Cream the RabbitRunnerAnother addition to the cast.
Rouge the BatRunnerAlso had a Halloween costume.
E-123 OmegaRunnerAlso had a Halloween costume.
Metal SonicRunnerEggman’s robot double.
SticksRunnerFrom the Sonic Boom series.
Baby Cyan WispBuddyOne of the Wisp buddies.
BooBuddyA ghostly helper.
IdeyaBuddyBorrowed from NiGHTS into Dreams.
Light ChaosBuddyA Chaos-themed buddy.
The people who made it
Key Sonic Team staff, as credited on Wikipedia.
Takashi IizukaProducerLong-time Sonic director and designer; confirmed the game at Tokyo Joypolis in December 2014 and explained its design in interviews.
Takao HirabayashiDirectorDirected the game.
Sachiko KawamuraArtistCredited for the game’s art.
Takayuki Okada, Takeshi Yamazaki and Jyunpei OotsuDesignersThe design team.
Kentarou TomiiProgrammerProgrammed the Unity build.
Tomoya OhtaniMusicBlended new tracks with remixed classics, written for a band line-up of drums, bass, guitar and piano.
How it was made
Our original page held only the release details; this section draws on Iizuka’s interviews, as reported by Wikipedia, and contemporary news.
Sonic Team goes mobile
Team Heroes artwork.
The idea took shape after Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II in 2012. That game was planned first and foremost for consoles; this time Sonic Team wanted something built around what phones do well, easy to pick up and regularly refreshed with new content. Work began in late 2013 with ten people, the team grew as it went, and the game took about eighteen months to make in the Unity engine.
Sonic Team aimed for the feel of the Mega Drive games, all action and jumping, and for more replay value than other endless runners, through a story mode, missions, alternate routes and power-ups. The buddy system started out with Chao alone, and characters such as Unleashed’s Chip were brought in later as a surprise for players. Keeping the visuals consistent across so many different devices was, Iizuka said, one of the hardest parts.
From a domain name to a world launch
The character select screen.
Sega registered the sonicrunners.com domain in July 2014, which set off rumours, and Iizuka confirmed the game at Tokyo Joypolis on 28 December 2014. A teaser followed in February 2015, and on 26 February the game soft-launched on the Japanese and Canadian app stores. TouchArcade noted that it was Sonic Team’s first original game for mobiles, where earlier new Sonic mobile games had come from other Sega studios. The full worldwide release came on 25 June 2015, two days after Sonic’s 24th anniversary.
Music
Tropical Coast, from our gallery of story cards.
For Tomoya Ohtani the job was a trip back in time: writing for a line-up of drums, bass, guitar and piano reminded him of the bands he played in when he was starting out. Fresh pieces sit alongside reworked themes from older Sonic games, put together the way he had approached the series before, and the score was released on iTunes as two digital albums, the first on 24 June and the second on 25 December 2015.
Firsts: what this game introduced
What Sonic Runners brought to Sonic on mobile.
1Sonic Team on smartphonesThe series’ home studio’s first Sonic game made only for smartphones.
2Side-on runnerClassic 2D running and jumping, on a single tap.
3BuddiesUp to two helpers per run, from Chao to the Death Egg.
4A huge castCharacters rarely playable elsewhere, such as Tikal and Mephiles.
Cheats & secrets
Our original page had no cheats section. Sonic Runners was an online game with no cheat codes; these were its main systems, from Wikipedia and Sonic Retro.
Daily roulette
Log in each day for a free spin; landing on “big” or “super” upgraded the wheel to better prizes.
Two buddies
Equip up to two buddies at once for extra boosts.
Checkpoints
Rings are banked when you pass a checkpoint, so they count even if you crash soon after.
Checked against Wikipedia and Sonic Retro, November 2026. The game no longer runs.
Glitches, exploits and oddities
Reviewers recorded the game’s technical problems.
Crashes and load times
TouchArcade and Jim Sterling both complained of crashes and long loading.
An always-online game
Because it needed a permanent connection, the shutdown of 27 July 2016 made the official game completely unplayable, even for people who had already downloaded it.
Ads everywhere
Even the soft-launch review that called it the best Sonic game in years singled out its pop-up ads.
Videos & media
Sega’s own trailer, and IGN’s gameplay video from 2015.
From SEGA’s official YouTube channel.
A gameplay video from IGN’s channel.
Trivia & facts
Zavok, from our gallery of story cards.The game was given away by a domain name: Sega registered sonicrunners.com months before it was announced.
Classic Sonic joined on 26 June 2015, the day after the worldwide launch, for Sonic’s 24th anniversary.
Hardcore Gamer, playing the soft-launch version, wondered if this was the “best Sonic game in years”.
Nintendo Life took the closure as a sign that a famous name alone does not guarantee success on phones.
Fans later rebuilt the servers themselves, so the game can be played again unofficially.
Legacy
Sonic Runners lasted about a year after its worldwide release. Note: the official game is no longer available or playable.
Release history
Domain registeredJuly 2014 – sonicrunners.com.
Announced28 December 2014 – By Takashi Iizuka at Tokyo Joypolis.
Soft launch26 February 2015 – Japan and Canada.
Worldwide release25 June 2015 – iOS and Android, free.
Shutdown announcedMay 2016 – Red Ring sales ended 27 May 2016.
Servers shut down27 July 2016 – The game stopped working.
Sonic Runners Adventure2017 – Gameloft’s paid successor.
The shutdown
Sega announced the closure in May 2016. Red Rings stopped being sold on 27 May and the servers went dark on 27 July 2016. Nintendo Life, reporting the news, noted that the game could still be downloaded but would become completely unplayable once the servers closed, because it required a constant online connection. Fans later reverse-engineered it and built their own client and server, so it lives on unofficially.
Sonic Runners Adventure
Gameloft picked up the idea. Its sequel leaked through a FAQ page in April 2017, and Sonic Runners Adventure, a one-off purchase this time rather than free-to-play, reached Russian and British Android phones that June and the rest of the world, on both iOS and Android, in December.
Sales & reviews
Downloads and earnings
Google Play counted more than five million downloads, but the money was not there. A Sega Networks presentation in December 2015 listed Sonic Runners as a “stalling title”, earning between ¥30 million and ¥50 million a month, and Wikipedia records it as a commercial failure.
51/100Metacritic (iOS)
5M+Google Play downloads
¥30–50MMonthly revenue, late 2015
17 monthsFrom soft launch to shutdown
Reception and review scores
Reviews of the final version cited by Wikipedia, converted to percentages. SuperPhillip Central gave it a C−.
DestructoidOnline · 25 June 2015
6/10
The JimquisitionOnline · 26 June 2015
4.5/10
TouchArcadeOnline · 30 June 2015
2/5
Before launch, the soft-launch build won praise: Hardcore Gamer called it focused and exhilarating and floated the idea that this could be the “best Sonic game in years”, though it already complained about the ads. TouchArcade liked the gameplay and presentation but worried the online features could derail it.
The final version split critics. Most enjoyed the running itself; Destructoid found real depth in it and Jim Sterling thought it played better than most runners, and TouchArcade preferred it to Sonic Dash. But the monetisation dominated the reviews. Destructoid called it unreasonable and exhausting, Sterling found it intrusive and over-complicated, and TouchArcade said that if you could think of a free-to-play gimmick, the game had it. Crashes and load times did not help, and Metacritic settled on 51.
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet. Played it? Give it a score out of 10 and tell other fans what you think.
Character art and models, buddies, items, story cards and screenshots, all from Sonic Scene’s own galleries. Select any image to view it larger.
Artwork from our original page.Vector.Espio.Charmy.Amy in her Amitie outfit.Gothic Amy.Christmas Sonic model.Halloween Omega model.ESP Silver model.Sonikku model.Indigo Asteroid Wisp.Invincibility.Easter Egg Chao.Pumpkin Chao.RC Hovercraft.Amy unlocked.Rouge unlocked.Vector in play.A Zazz Raid event with Zeena.Screenshot.Screenshot.Screenshot.Screenshot.Cave story card.Silent Forest story card.Metal Espio story card.Jump panel story card.
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources below. Sonic Retro and older press pages were read through Wayback Machine copies. Character, buddy and event names in captions come from the file names in Sonic Scene’s own galleries.
Miles “Tails” ProwerRunner
Knuckles the EchidnaRunner
Amy RoseRunner
Shadow the HedgehogRunner
Blaze the CatRunner
Silver the HedgehogRunner
Classic SonicAdded 26 June 2015
The ChaotixRunners
TikalRunner
MephilesRunner
Sonic the WerehogRunner
Big the CatRunnerSonic Adventure’s fisherman joins the roster.
Cream the RabbitRunnerAnother addition to the cast.
Rouge the BatRunnerAlso had a Halloween costume.
E-123 OmegaRunnerAlso had a Halloween costume.
Metal SonicRunnerEggman’s robot double.
SticksRunnerFrom the Sonic Boom series.
Baby Cyan WispBuddyOne of the Wisp buddies.
BooBuddyA ghostly helper.
IdeyaBuddyBorrowed from NiGHTS into Dreams.
Light ChaosBuddyA Chaos-themed buddy.
