SEGA Has Been Quietly Killing It This Year, Regularly Publishing Bangers

Credit where it's due

by · Push Square

Plucky Japanese publisher SEGA has had quite a tumultuous journey over the 64 years since the company was founded. From early coin-operated machines to its own tilt at the console market, these days, the firm is a publisher of games, and it's been putting out some real bangers of late.

As noted in a thread on ResetEra, if you look at the number of games published by SEGA on consoles in 2024 alone, it's hard not to be impressed. We got Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, then Persona 3 Reload, Unicorn Overlord, and SMT V: Vengeance, all of which were well-received by fans and critics. The imminent Metaphor: ReFantazio is looking like a clear Game of the Year contender and another landmark RPG from Atlus. A sign of its enduring identity, Sonic X Shadow Generations is still to come, which fans seem excited about. The outrageous Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza is on the horizon, too.

We just learned that a sequel to Alien: Isolation is in the early stages of development at Creative Assembly, best known for its long-running Total War series of PC grand strategy games. No one is a harsher critic of that particular studio than this humble scribe, but (as a side note) it must be said that CA has done an outstanding job revitalising the initially underbaked Total War: Warhammer 3 and Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties this year, seemingly finding major success in the process.

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How do you feel about SEGA these days? Are you a fan of the publisher's many diverse IPs? Proclaim yourself a modern, born-again SEGA kid in the comments section below.

[source resetera.com]

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About Khayl Adam

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

Comments 26

Atlus carrying them with three fantastic releases. Looking forward to Sonic though mainly for the Shadow stuff as i love Shadow.

Sega have aome awsome IPs. Its when they try and maks a Sonic game that things usually go wrong.

For a second I thought this was a soapbox. But either way Khayl is absolutely right on the money. Can’t wait for shadow.

Finally seeing an Alien Isolation sequel in development is fantastic news! I just hope it's a direct continuation of the first game.

@Kidfunkadelic83 you seen the trailer for the “Sega 5”? Lots of stuff there look pretty cool! I was super into streets of rage and golden axe back when they were new.

I gotta catch up so bad, I've only played SMTV V and that's a re release of a game I had already played 😭

My first console was the Sega Genesis so I've been a fanboy for a while. Phantasy Star was my first RPG series and Shining Force was my first strategy game. Currently really into the Yakuza and Persona games. Go Sega!

Wow same here with shining force and genesis. @Dragonaged

@Kidfunkadelic83 lol, exactly what I was going to say.

My fondest memories of SEGA games are all in the racing genre. They did some really amazing stuff back in the day. I’m sure the developers who actually worked on them have moved on, but I’d still be interested if Daytona, SEGA Rally, or Virtua Racing were revived in addition to Crazy Taxi.

Just got the email about 10 years of Alien Isolation and a sequel it's a about dam time. I couldn't believe because it got a stupid score of 7/10 from IGN and not very good sales at the time it wasn't worth a sequel. But then word of mouth and it blew up to be one of the best horror Alien games ever I mean they nailed the atmosphere and world the ship and Alien AI to a T.

I've never crapped myself constantly in a game before like A.I especially on higher difficulty, I felt like one of the crew in the movie Alien

Id love to see Viruta Racing and Daytona but licenses would be far to much now in today's world with F1 being like it is and NASCAR

@Nakatomi_Uk IGN actually scored it 5.9.

@Yousef- yeah man. Some stuff to get exited about there for sure. Its Sonic that always seems to go wrong tho. Im not a lover of sonic tbh in general. I just find the pace too fast until you hit and enemy or a wall for my taste and old man reactions. It just seems alot of Sonic games get fried by the old school fans. Colours for instance.

Great to see Sega and Capcom firing on all cylinders 🙂 such gaming gods for sure. That said, I rolled on the floor laughing when I saw IGN’s announcement for Alien Isolation sequel. Their review of the original game is surely one of the most embarrasing mistakes in the history of game reviews.

@Kidfunkadelic83 I’m definitely not about to defend modern sonic any time soon. Colours barely qualified as a tech demo. Last sonic game I’d call a masterpiece was 3&K. Everything after was too all over the place, even if some I liked.
Even if I occasionally enjoy it, It’s definitely not a serious I’d die to recommend others. Kinda shocking how such a mainstream franchise is more suited for an acquired taste.

As a SEGA girl at heart, this article makes me giggle. They have been one of the best publishers for years and I can’t wait for those “Sega 5” games!
.
p.s. I was looking at the best games of 2024 by metascore just to get ideas for goty predictions and I must say that Sony also very silently had a killer year, Concord embarrassment aside: they published a trio of quality, diverse offering with Stellar, Helldivers II and Astro, while the last of us remakes land Horizon FW complete were really well reviewed.

Sure they're one of the best publisher for this year. Although, i would give more credit towards Vanillaware and Atlus since they're the ones who made Sega lineup looks a lot more colorful with Unicorn Overlord, Persona, SMT, and Metaphor. Without these games, Sega lineup are just Yakuza IW and Sonic x Shadow.

I'm waiting what Sega can do with their own classic IP. They showed that trailer for new Shinobi, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Streets of Rage, and Golden Axe. But so far there's no new updates about those games which makes me worried.

Also, i would love for a new Virtua Fighter. It's just weird how Sega remastered VF 5 and it got 8 million downloads or something. But there's no follow up after that?
Meanwhile Capcom, SNK, ArcSys, and Bamco are thriving with their fighting games.

@PuppetMaster fellow VF geek here, I played a bit of FS on my Xbox. Stopped because was too heartbroken there’s no new game. 😭
On a silly note though, finding Vanilla SFIV matches in 2023 made me think I’d have some luck in VF5, suffice to say I was back empty handed.

I'm a long a long time Sega fan and whilst their output is a bit different these days, they've still put out some of my favourite games of recent years. Whether that be Sonic Frontiers, the Like A Dragon games and Infinite Wealth still being my favourite game so far this year.

Fingers crossed their revivals turn out well and I'd love to see the return of the Virtua Fighter series and their arcade racing games

Dreamcast is still my favourite console of all time

unpopular opinion i guess but sonic is still mediocre imo , i played generations enough already and wish they’d make an adventure 3 or a new sonic heroes . im so tired of boosting

My first ever console was the Sega Master System, with Alex Kidd as the pack-in game. Due to this, I'll always have a soft spot for Sega.

It's good to see them doing well. Hopefully Persona 6 will be announced soon.

Bring back Condemned, please.

@Yousef- You can try Ultimate Showdown on PS4/5. There's still people playing the game but don't expect you will get a quick matchmaking.

I also heard lately there's plenty of people playing VF 3tb on fightcade.

But yeah, i think you will found more people playing SF IV than VF 5. Outside Tekken, i think most 3D fighters are dead or barely alive which is sad. We used to get Soul Calibur, DOA, Bloody Roar, VF, Toshinden etc etc. But now it's just Tekken...

Take notes, Ubisoft

My first exposure to gaming as a kid came from Sega Genesis so I naturally have a soft spot for them. For a while though I wasn't as into them as I should have been for the PS2/PS3 generations.

Then along came 2017 and I haven't gone a year without buying a Sega published game since. Persona 5 was the catalyst. I hadn't been into JRPGS in a while until I played that and went on to play the rest of the series.

Then I finally gave Yakuza a shot with Yakuza 0 and went back and played all of those and loved every minute of it.

Then I decided to play Valkyria Chronicles for the first time and fell in love with that series. Then I also figured it had been a while since I'd tried a Sonic game and tried Frontiers and ended up having a blast with it...

So yeah Sega has been absolutely crushing it lately. They really have become probably the most important publisher around for me.

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