Sonic Origins dev tells SEGA they’re very unhappy with the state of the game

Some traditions die hard, eh? It just wouldn’t be the launch of a new Sonic the Hedgehog game without a controversy here, a few charmingly eccentric hiccups there. Denuvo, janky physics, you name it – the speedster has seen, and survived, it all. So what malady marks the debut of his newest title, Sonic Origins? Well, first off, perhaps ‘newest’ is a misnomer, being as it is the millionth compilation of the classic Genesis titles. This one, though, promises far more bells and whistles, like a gorgeous UI, a story mode, and animated cutscenes produced by company legend Tyson Hesse. But to return to the point: Origins has some issues to call its own, to be sure. So much so that a member of Headcannon, the team behind a fair chunk of the game’s development, has called out SEGA for “ruining” his and others’ hard work. Ouch.

Distinctly un-Stealth-y comments

Per Eurogamer, Simon “Stealth” Thomley, of Headcannon “took to Twitter to accuse SEGA of introducing wild bugs into the game.” For the unfamiliar, fans have noted a host of glitches, ranging from basic graphical blips to straight-up save file corruption. In response, Thomley has “written a series of Tweets explaining his team’s involvement as “outsiders creating a separate project that was then wrangled into something entirely different.” Points for the word ‘wrangled’, fellas.

“This is frustrating,” he writes. “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. We knew going in that there would be a major time crunch and we worked ourselves into the ground to meet it just so this would even be made and released.”

Trouble brewing in Sonic Origins

Thomley does concede Headcannon has its part to play in the issues, however.

“Again, I can take responsibility for my and my team’s mistakes, and there were some. Some actual mistakes, some overlooking, some rushjobs, some stuff we noticed but weren’t allowed to correct near the end,” Thomley wrote. “It’s absolutely not perfect and some of it is from us. It’s complicated. I’m extremely proud of my team for their performance under such pressure, but every one of us is very unhappy about the state of Origins and especially the Sonic 3 component. We weren’t too thrilled about its pre-submission state either but a lot was beyond our control.”

Fans have indeed zeroed in on the Sonic 3 portion of the package as a disappointment, as it lacks the original Michael Jackson-contributed soundtrack and plays the most wonkily.

“We asked to do major fixes near submission but weren’t allowed due to submission and approval rules. We asked about delays early and repeatedly but were told they weren’t possible. We offered to come back for post-release fixes and updates – we do not yet know if this is happening. We want these problems to be addressed. We provided a ton of feedback during and after development for both Origins and its Sonic 3 integration. We’ve done a good chunk of work after our work term was over to fix things, support SEGA, and to prepare for future updates.”

SEGA’s insistence on rushing to meet deadlines, even if things aren’t necessarily shipshape, will certainly ring familiar to series veterans. Whether or not Thomley’s concerns will ever be addressed remains to be seen, but for now, let us know your thoughts on Sonic Origins. Did you pick it up? Has your copy been glitchy? We’re all ears.

Via, Eurogamer.