A new fan game called Sonic And The Fallen Star has been released, and it can be played for free right now.
Released on July 1 and developed by two-person team StarDrop and Hollie Taylor, Fallen Star is a completely original 2D Sonic game with nine new levels, along with new music, characters, enemies and boss fights.
Fallen Star also includes cutscenes between each zone, special stages for collecting the Chaos Emeralds and around 50 original tracks.
Check out the trailer for the robust fan game below.
Beginning development in late 2020, the free download takes inspiration from games like Sonic 3 and Sonic Heroes. “I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t take inspiration from LakeFeperd’s Sonic fan games, Sonic Before The Sequel and After The Sequel,” lead developer StarDrop told NME. “Those were a big inspiration for me while making the game.”
That’s not all, as StarDrop explained how official new and old Sonic titles were also on the reading list when developing Fallen Star. “I just tried to take inspiration from the classics like Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, and newer games like Sonic Mania too.”
Whilst Taylor handled all of the original music, with a full playlist on her YouTube channel, almost all of the game’s development was done by StarDrop, who said he got “some help here and there” on things like sprite work, but he added that it was largely the two of them during development.
This is also StarDrop’s first major development project, and whilst he told NME that Sonic And The Fallen Star won’t be receiving any extra content, he said he’ll more than likely start working on another fan game of the blue blur.
When asked if he’d do something similar to Mania and develop for Sega if given the chance, StarDrop explained how he’d rather make his own games: “Honestly not really, I’d rather work on my own creative works rather than develop games for a larger company. I like the creative freedom it provides.”
Sonic And The Fallen Star can be played on a Windows PC with controller support, learn more about the game and find the download here.
In other news, Ubisoft is set to shut down the online service of 15 of its older titles, including Far Cry 3.
