During a recent interview with the publication VGC at Summer Games Fest, the Sonic creative head Takashi Iizuka offered fans an update on some of the company's dormant franchises, including NiGHTS into Dreams and Burning Rangers.
The update came after VGC's owner & editor Andy Robinson asked Iizuka whether either of these two games could possibly see a comeback in line with the recent revival of Samba De Amigo, and it seems like the Sonic boss doesn't rule out a future where this could be the case.
Responding to Robinson's question, Iizuka told VGC:
"I can’t say yes to anything right now. These days I’m the creative officer for Sonic the Hedgehog, so I’m totally focused on that side of the business. So I can’t really speak for anyone else, but Sonic Team in Japan has been ramping up and hiring lots of people recently – they have more people than ever. So there may be some future where you’ll be hearing about these kinds of titles."
In case you're in need of a quick refresher, Sonic Team released NiGHTS into Dreams and Burning Rangers for the Sega Saturn in 1996 and 1998 respectively.
Since that time, NiGHTS into Dreams has received a couple of ports (to the PS2 in Japan and Windows PCs internationally) and even received a sequel for the Nintendo Wii in 2008. In the past, Iizuka has expressed some interest in working on a third game in the series, but in the 13 years since those comments were originally made it has still yet to materialize.
Burning Rangers, on the other hand, has never been reissued, and as a result, copies of the original game are now going for hundreds of dollars online.
Iizuka's comments are obviously not the official confirmation we've all been waiting to hear, but it's encouraging to hear him not immediately dismiss these kinds of projects outright. All we can do is simply cross our fingers and hope that Sega has something up its sleeve for the future.