It's official, SEGA has killed Sonic the Hedgehog. After 32 years of spinning around the Green Hill Zone, the blue blur has grabbed his last ring and kicked the bucket. If you want to find out who's behind this heinous act, you'll have to play The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog.

While most of you might think 2022's divisive Sonic Frontiers is the most recent Sonic game, SEGA surprised us with The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog on April 1. Although it started out as a frankly brilliant April Fool's joke, it's since gone viral and soared up the Steam charts.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is one of Steam's highest-rated games

Posting on Twitter, Sonic Social Media Manager Katie - MiniKitty shared the news that over a million players have downloaded The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog since April 1. When posting the tweet, it was the 61st highest-rated game on Steam...of all time. 

Looking at Steam, there are 11,649 reviews, with 11,466 and only 183 negative. Even then, we imagine some of them are from trolls. If you check SteamDB, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is now the 58th highest-rated game of all time for the platform. 

This means the surprise hit currently rated higher than Cuphead, Fallout: New Vegas, and even 2018's God of War. We imagine Kratos is pretty peeved right now. Not bad for a free game that started as a joke.

The reviews speak for themselves. One fan wrote, "I can't believe the amount of quality and attention to detail they put into this, which makes me despise games like Sonic Forces even more than before. "Another added, "It's been a long time since any Sonic media utilized these characters in a way that reminded me why I love them to begin with."

What is The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog about?

For those new to this murder mystery, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog follows the murder of the titular hog during Amy Rose's birthday party. As a new character, you board the Mirage Express train and try to decipher what went down. 

There's a lot going on with the Sonicverse right now. Sonic Frontiers just got a huge update with a photo mode, new challenges, and even a jukebox to listen to classic Sonic songs. Still, it's nothing compared to the fan service The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog gives us.

With The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog being a huge hit, we question whether there will be more of these Ace Attorney-inspired games? Point-and-click visual novels are a booming genre, and attaching an IP as big as Sonic to it has clearly worked. 

As no other Sonic game has even managed to crack Steam's top 250 games, we think SEGA would be mad not to create a Murder sequel and slap a low price on it. We'd definitely hand over a few rings for it.