Popverse's top stories

• Avengers: Doomsday is already ignoring one of the biggest lessons of the success of James Gunn’s Superman
• What to Watch This Weekend: All the Alien movies before Alien: Earth next week
• Luigi Mangione is "a story about the American Dream Gone Wrong," says James Patterson, and he's writing a book to prove it

Sega has had a rough string of luck the past few years. So much so that Sega President Shuji Utsumi considers his main job to be “reviving” the video game company. Part of that is making better games, sure, but part of that is also rebuilding their most iconic character’s brand. That is why Sega is giving free reign of Sonic the Hedgehog to Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds.

This bit of news came from an interview following Summer Games Fest 2025. During the interview, Utsumi laid out how he plans to make Sega a major player in the video game industry again. Part of that is focusing on mobile games and the Games As A Service (GAAS) model, which is where Rovio, the Angry Birds developer that Sega acquired back in 2023, comes in.

“Rovio has deep knowledge of the global mobile business, and very strong IP with Angry Birds,” Utsumi said. “We feel like the fit between Rovio and Sega is good. We are working closely with Rovio to have a Sonic mobile game, and we are giving them access to IPs, including Sonic, to come up with nice, welcoming GAAS titles.”

So it isn’t just that you might see Sonic popping into an Angry Birds update soon; Rovio has apparently been given the green light to develop a Sonic the Hedgehog mobile game from scratch, incorporating the GAAS model that so many developers are desperate to crack. Done well, these kinds of titles can be a huge asset to companies, bringing in a constant revenue stream through frequent updates, but it is still questionable how well Sonic would fit in such a model.

The gaming industry has come a long way since Pong blew all our minds in the 70s. We've got everything you need to know about the next big thing in games. Of course, Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be the big game of 2026, but there are plenty of other games coming out between now and then. Here is our starter guide for every gamer:

• All upcoming games in 2025 and beyond
• Gamify My Life, our weekly gaming column designed
• Popverse Picks: The best Assassin's Creed protagonists
• How to play every GTA game in order
• Why the GTA 6 budget isn't as crazy as you think
• The Magic: The Gathering x Spider-Man crossover set wouldn't exist without the Spider-Verse

And be sure to check Popverse regularly for the latest gaming news.