Sonic X-treme was a cancelled platform video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog
series. Developed by Sega Technical Institute, X-treme was designed to
capitalize on the success of Sega's mascot character by being the first
fully 3D Sonic game and the first original Sonic title developed for the
Sega Saturn. During the course of development, several different styles of
gameplay were tried and the plot of the game changed several times.
Originally pitched as a two-dimensional platform game for the Sega Genesis, the
game was eventually moved to development on the Saturn and for Windows, intended
for release during the holiday season of 1996. However, X-treme became stuck in
development hell after several incidents, including an unfavorable
visit by Sega of Japan executives and issues with acquiring a game engine,
made the deadline difficult to achieve. After two of the lead programmers for
the project became ill, the game was eventually cancelled. Reviewers and
video game journalists have retrospectively considered the
possibility of what Sonic X-treme could have done for the Saturn had it been
released, including comparisons to competing mascot video games Super Mario
64 and Crash Bandicoot. Premise
With the game constantly changing platforms, engines, and development
teams, there were many loose storylines in consideration. According to developer
Christian Senn, about six or seven story lines were considered during the
three-year development timeframe. While originally based on the Saturday morning
cartoon series, the main storyline used in promotion of the final game in
magazines involved a Professor Gazebo Boobowski and his daughter, Tiara. The
two were the guardians of the six magical Rings of Order, as well as the
ancient art of ring-smithing. Gazebo and Tiara feared that Dr. Robotnik was after
the six Rings of Order, and called on Sonic to get the Rings before Robotnik
could. Dr. Robotnik kidnapped Gazebo after he requested Sonic's help, making
it so Sonic had to retrieve both him and the Rings of Order. At one point in the
development process, there was a possibility for 4 playable characters:
Knuckles the Echidna, Tiara Boobowski, Miles "Tails" Prower, and Sonic the
Hedgehog. Other characters intended to be included in the game were Nack the
Weasel and Metal Sonic, who would have been a boss character in the final
level. Various moves were added to the characters, such as a ring toss move for
Sonic, which was left out of development.
To further the traditional "Sonic formula", every level was designed in a
tube-like fashion; Sonic would be able to walk onto walls, thus changing the
direction of gravity and the rotation of the level itself, much like the special
stages in Knuckles' Chaotix. In addition, an unusual, fish-eye
lens-styled camera was put into place so players could see more of their
surroundings at any given time. "3D Sonic is free to move around in a
completely open 3D environment. Previously, on the 2D games, things were
restricted to a very linear path, whereas now he can run around in the
open without any restrictions to his path. The 360-degree rotation allows for
new aspects to the gameplay. It means that Sonic can now do things like run
from a wall onto the ceiling and explore lots of new hidden areas."
Senn has highlighted that the 3D gameplay still kept true to the Sonic
series formula of collecting rings and speeding through game levels. Wallis
also made mention to the game's overall layout, consisting of three acts per
zone and varying in focuses on speed, exploration, and puzzle solving.
Development Following the completion of Sonic &
Knuckles in 1994, Sega began working on the next game in its Sonic the Hedgehog
franchise, which was known in development as Sonic X-treme and would
have been the first Sonic game to feature fully 3D graphics. Development
of the game was started by Sega Technical Institute, a U.S.-based
developer that had worked on several previous Sonic games, beginning on the
Sega Genesis and subsequently moving to the Sega 32X. In its earliest
conception, Sonic X-treme was designed for release on the Sega Genesis as a
side-scrolling platform game, much like previous Sonic games for the system. As
new consoles and the beginning of the 32-bit era were on the way, the game was
later moved to the Sega 32X and was known at this stage under the
development names Sonic 32X and Sonic Mars, after the development name
"Project Mars" used for the Sega 32X. Even at this stage, the game's design
changed wildly, including concepts such as an isometric viewpoint side-scroller.
Eventually, however, development of the game was settled on a full 3D platform
game. As the game's design had changed
significantly and evolved beyond the capabilities of the struggling Sega 32X,
the game was shifted again to the Sega Saturn. The Saturn version of the
project was initially developed separately by two teams in parallel
starting in the second half of 1995. One team, led by designer Chris Senn and
programmer Ofer Alon, was in charge of developing the main game for PC. The
other team, led by Robert Morgan and including programmer Chris Coffin,
worked on porting Senn and Alon's work to the Saturn while developing the
"free-roaming, 'arena-style'" 3D boss engine. Senn and Alon's "fixed-camera
side-scroller" with the ability "to move freely in all directions" was similar to
Bug!, and featured a fish-eye camera system that gave players a wide-angle
view of the action. As a result, levels appeared to move around Sonic.
In March 1996, Sega of Japan representatives, including CEO Hayao
Nakayama, visited STI headquarters to evaluate the game's progress. They were
unimpressed by the main game engine's performance on the Saturn, although Senn
and Alon did not have an opportunity to demonstrate the PC version. Therefore,
Nakayama requested the entire game be reworked around the boss engine. To
achieve this in time for the strict December 1996 deadline, Coffin's team
was moved into a place of isolation from further company politics and worked
between sixteen and twenty hours a day. Then, in April, Bernie Stolar approached
the STI team and inquired of Wallis what he could do to help the game meet its
deadline. Wallis suggested that the game engine from Sonic Team's Nights into
Dreams... would be helpful. Stolar agreed and acquired the engine. However,
the engine's creator and lead programmer of the original Mega Drive Sonic games,
Yuji Naka, reportedly threatened to leave the company if it was used. STI
lost two weeks of development time from the loss of the Nights engine.
Senn and Alon had initially continued on with their game engine, undeterred by
their work's original rejection, hoping to pitch it to Sega's PC division.
However, it was eventually rejected again, prompting Alon to leave Sega. No
part of the STI team worked in unity during development.
"We had artists doing art for levels that hadn't even been concepted out. We
had programmers waiting and waiting and waiting until every minute detail had
been concepted out, and we had designers doing whatever the hell they wanted. It
was a mess, and because of the internal politics, it was even more difficult to
get any work done." By August, Chris Senn had become so ill
that he was told he had six months to live—though Senn would survive this
ordeal—and Chris Coffin came down with a severe case of pneumonia. With both
Senn's team and Coffin's team crippled, Wallis was left with an incomplete
X-treme and only two months before its deadline. At this point, he made the
decision to cancel the game. Although Sega initially stated that X-treme had
merely been delayed, the project was cancelled in early 1997.
After cancellation With the cancellation of X-treme, Sega
instead decided to concentrate on a port of the Genesis title Sonic 3D Blast, and
Sonic Team's Nights into Dreams... for the 1996 holiday season. Sonic Team
started work on an original 3D Sonic title for the Saturn, which eventually
became Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. According to Naka, remnants
of the project can be seen in the compilation game Sonic Jam. STI was
officially disbanded in 1996 as a result of changes in management at Sega of
America. For many years, very little content from
the game was ever released beyond screenshots that had been released to
the media in promotion of the game prior to its cancellation. However, in 2006 a
copy of a very early test engine was sold at auction to an anonymous
collector who bought it for US$2500. An animated GIF image of the gameplay was
initially released, and the disk image itself was leaked on July 17, 2007 after
a fundraising project by the "Assemblergames" website community
purchased the disc from the collector. In 2006, Chris Senn opened the "Sonic
X-treme Compendium" web site and began revealing large amounts of the game's
development history to the public, including videos of early footage, a
playable character named Tiara, and a large amount of previously unreleased
concept music related to the title. He also was given permission by Hirokazu
Yasuhara, the level designer for the majority of the original 16-bit Sonic
titles, to post level designs that were going to be put in the game. Senn, along
with the community, announced intentions to recreate the game, but ultimately the
project was canceled in January 2010. In early 2015, fans from Sonic fansite
"Sonic Retro" obtained the game's source code, polished it up into a playable
build, and released it for download on the internet. It is largely faithful to
the game's original state, with their changes merely being made to piece
together code to make it playable and running on modern computers. The first
release only features one level, the Jungle-themed level from the 1996 E3
promotional video, but the team expects to be able to release more levels in the
future. Legacy
The Sonic X-treme debacle has been cited as a reason for the ultimate failure of
the Sega Saturn. With the Sonic the Hedgehog series being attributed to much
of the success of the company's prior system, the Genesis, and Sony and
Nintendo both having flagship 3D platformers available early in the life
cycle of their consoles, Sega was expected by fans to follow suit and
produce an official 3D Sonic game. With the game's cancellation, the Saturn
never did receive an exclusive Sonic platform game, but rather only the
Genesis port of Sonic 3D Blast; Sonic Jam, a compilation of the 2D Genesis
Sonic titles; and Sonic R, a racing game. Sonic's debut in a full 3D
platform game was not until 1998, with Sonic Adventure as a Dreamcast launch
title, well after the discontinuation of the Saturn.
Following the game's cancellation, journalists and fans have speculated
about the impact a completed X-treme might have had on the market. David
Houghton of GamesRadar described the prospect of "a good 3D Sonic game" on
the Saturn as "a 'What if...' situation on a par with the dinosaurs not becoming
extinct." IGN's Travis Fahs called X-treme "the turning point not only for
SEGA's mascot and their 32-bit console, but for the entire company", although he
also noted that the game served as "an empty vessel for SEGA's ambitions and
the hopes of their fans". Dave Zdyrko, who operated a prominent website for
Saturn fans during the system's lifespan, offered a more nuanced
perspective: "I don't know if [X-treme] could've saved the Saturn, but ... Sonic
helped make the Genesis and it made absolutely no sense why there wasn't a
great new Sonic title ready at or near the launch of the [Saturn]". In a 2013
retrospective, producer Mike Wallis maintained that X-treme "definitely
would have been competitive" with Nintendo's Super Mario 64. Websites such
as Destructoid and GamesRadar have speculated the game could have been a
source of inspiration for future games such as 2007's Super Mario Galaxy.
Several journalists would also note similarities between X-treme and the
2013 game Sonic Lost World. References