In some posts on Twitter yesterday, Sonic Origins developer Simon “Stealth” Thomley expressed dissatisfaction with the state of Sega’s recently released compilation package. Noting a series of new bugs, he detailed how these issues were brought up pre-release with Sega.
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Too Fast To Check
While a lot of news has been focused on the removal of certain songs from the version of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles included in Sonic Origins, it seems there are other issues present in the new ports Sega has just released. In a rather long thread of posts, Simon Thomley aired some grievances with how things were handled when it came to releasing this new package. “I won’t lie and say that there weren’t issues in what we gave to Sega, but what is in Origins is also not what we turned in,” claimed Thomley.
Going further, he notes how there was a major time crunch to get Sonic Origins out in time and that some issues in the port are the result of overlooked bugs, rushed development, and issues that Headcannon wasn’t allowed to correct. This reportedly happened due to the submission and approval process that Sega had to go through for each console platform.
This is frustrating. I won't lie and say that there weren't issues in what we gave to Sega, but what is in Origins is also not what we turned in. Integration introduced some wild bugs that conventional logic would have one believe were our responsibility- a lot of them aren't.
— Stealth (@HCStealth) June 24, 2022
What Comes Next?
What does this mean for the future of any retro Sonic projects? It’s hard to say, but Thomley brings up how putting Sega on blast like this can be considered unprofessional. While it is unlikely that Sega won’t provide patches and fixes for Sonic Origins, those patches may not come from Headcannon itself. This could also spell the end of any potential Sonic Mania follow-up, something fans of that game have wanted for years now. Thomley simply couldn’t sit in silence any longer, however, so he wanted to get his side of the story out.
The general response to the Sonic Origins Collection has been relatively positive, though some users have noted new bugs and a couple of reviews are dismayed by Sega cutting content for DLC. Thomley might be getting ahead of any blowback, but we only have one side of the story for the time being.
