Sonic boss suggests it won’t make a standalone Chao Garden game

Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka has suggested the studio isn’t planning to make a new Chao Garden game, at least not a standalone one.

Chao Gardens are special areas in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, where players can raise the small Chao characters found in the game.

The mode is popular among Sonic fans, and earlier this year, a rumour spread that a Chao-raising mobile game was in development.

However, in an interview with VGC, Iizuka suggested that there would be no standalone Chao Garden release any time soon.

Upon being told that many fans were continuing to ask if Sonic Adventure 3 or Chao Garden would ever return, Iizuka explained that the latter was part of the Sonic Adventure structure and couldn’t be easily separated from it.

“When we talk about Chao Garden specifically, I know everyone’s like ‘I want Chao Garden, I want Chao Garden’,” Iizuka replied (via an interpreter). “But Chao Garden is a piece… it’s part of the whole Sonic Adventure series of games.

“It’s not a standalone game, it’s integrated into the whole Adventure series gameplay, so we can’t just break it off and make it a thing. And so it’s like, alright, well, if you’re asking for Chao Garden and Adventure 3, then that’s pretty much asking for Adventure 3.

“I think at some time I’d like to say ‘hey, yeah, we’re making Adventure 3’, but we don’t have plans for that yet. It’s just one of those things that if, if the stars align and it can all happen, then yeah, we’d love to make it.”

In a previous interview with VGC back in June, Iizuka dismissed speculation that there would be a Chao Garden in Sonic X Shadow Generations.

When we pointed out that fans seemed to want it back, and asked if he would ever consider doing so, he replied: “At some time, yes, because we hear the same thing. Everybody wants it!”

Header image courtesy of Chao Island