Rumors have been spreading, both private and in public, about a public release of a test engine of the lost Sonic game, Sonic X-Treme, which was originally planned to debut as “the” Sonic game on the Sega Saturn, which was later scrapped and replaced with the far-inferior Sonic 3D Blast, which, even though it had a nice soundtrack, was mediocre compared to what X-Treme had offered.
According to various forum posts on both Sonic CulT and the Sonic 2 Beta page, local scener HXC, Sonic X-Treme research extraordinare, ASSEMbler, of ASSEMblergames.com has obtained a copy of a Sonic X-Treme test build, which was up for auction a couple of years beforehand, and was auctioned off to a collector, who had the game for an extended period of time. Now, rumors have spread that this developmental build of Sonic X-Treme will be released to the public on July 18th, free for anyone to download and research.
Will it be true? We can’t say for sure. But, knowing HXC, there’s a pretty good chance it is. Here’s some in-game footage of the game, courtesy of ASSEMblergames.com:
For many Sonic fans everywhere, this is a tremendous opportunity to take a deep look at what this game could have been. While it’s admittedly not much (just a simple engine test), it’s certainly a great find, and certainly worth a look if you consider yourself a Sonic fan. And surely, you do, especially if you visit this site. 😉
More details as they come.
[NOTE: While the video is described as the “NiGHTS” build of Sonic X-Treme, this is not true. There was never a build of Sonic X-Treme that used the NiGHTS engine, despite various rumors.]