Publisher Sega, owner of fan-favorite franchises like Persona and Sonic the Hedgehog, recently stated in a financial report that it is currently in the process of developing a "Super Game," set to come out before March 2026. Though the term by itself is a bit vague, the report further clarifies what this project entails, and it's made clear that it's not something totally unheard of.
The company's goal with this "Super Game," first and foremost, is to attract more active users to it "than any of [Sega's] games to date." Sega wants the title to have a large and present community that engages with the game not just by playing it, but also by streaming it and watching videos of it. The report goes on to say that Sega wants a community that "expands and further develops game content, adding value to a game that is unimagined by developers," which would then result in even more users, more content, and so on.
It's clear the publisher wants its own mega-popular ongoing title that fans play and support throughout the years, not unlike games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and League of Legends. As the report stated, though, Sega specifically wants the type of game that can be supported with user-generated content; a very financially savvy idea, as fans themselves can create what keeps players coming back to the title, without the developers having to devote any time to make it.
Many games have found enormous success with user-generated content, Fortnite and Minecraft included. There are even more deliberate attempts with games specifically centered around it, such as Nintendo's Super Mario Maker and PlayStation's Dreams. If this "Super Game" is to be successful, it's important for the developers to create a robust set of intuitive tools that will allow players to easily make their own custom modes. However, sometimes very passionate communities do this on their own via modding.
Sega is attempting something tricky here. For a game like this to be successful, it needs a good hook in the first place to lure gamers in and make them strongly passionate about it. Sega luckily acknowledges this, stating that "the starting point for building that kind of community is creating an interesting game". This, however, isn't the extent of Sega's plans. The report also celebrated its library of past IPs, and declared that the company plans to use these IPs for "remakes, remastering, and reboots," as well as offer them to "subscription-based services."