The Sonic the Hedgehog panel at South and Southwest (SXSW) happened on Friday, March 21, 2018. Every other game journalist has covered this event. But this is not every other game journalist. This is the Arrow. That means we can cover this now.

Sonic the Hedgehog has been in what some call a “state of quandary” for years. For every “Sonic Mania,” there is a Sonic Forces. But this year, the Sonic the Hedgehog panel at SXSW was kind of surprising when they announced Sonic Mania Plus. Mania Plus will be a set of Downloadable Content (DLC) for Sonic Mania, which will be available for purchase for those who bought the game before. The DLC will be $10. But, the much more interesting news is that Sonic Mania Plus will be available physically as a retail copy. If you do not know what that means, it means that you will be able to walk into a store that sells new games and purchase a physical copy. The case will have a reversible Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive depending what region you are in) cover that honestly looks cooler than the holographic cover. The physical release will also come with a 32-page art book. The actual game will be largely the same as its 2017 source material. The only known additions at the time of writing this is that Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel from the old arcade game “SegaSonic the Hedgehog” will be playable characters. Sonic Mania Plus will be available at retail for $29.99.

In other Sonic Mania news: the panel announced Sonic Mania Adventures. This five-episode animated series will star Classic Sonic after the events of Sonic Forces. The panel showed a brief 35 second teaser for the show. The show will be available to watch on YouTube and the teaser is available to watch here.

After that, in what may be the most mysterious news in the entire panel, SEGA announced that there is going to be a new Sonic Racing game. They showed off a ten-second teaser trailer for the game (which they announced is a new intellectual property or IP). The most striking thing about the logo (which was also teased) is that it featured the iconic R from the infamous racing game “Sonic R.” Fans are currently speculating what this R means and if there is any sort of connection to prior racing games like Sonic R or Sonic Drift. The teaser is available to watch here.

That is all there was for the Sonic SXSW panel. Other than that, SEGA is collaborating with Puma to make a Sonic the Hedgehog themed shoes (which are highly pixelated now, as not to reveal anything too soon). The only thing left to do is to wait. Who knows? Maybe at some other Sonic event, SEGA will announce something entirely new. Maybe it will be the fabled Sonic Adventure 3 that fans have waited for too long. Maybe Sonic Unleashed will be remade for the modern day (if you can make the game that kick started the Modern Sonic/ “Boost” era modern). Until then, we will have to settle for Classic Sonic, Classic Sonic and a bit more Classic Sonic. Sonic Mania Plus is available for pre-order now here on Amazon and here on GameStop.