Yesterday, to celebrate Sonic’s 28th anniversary, former Backbone Entertainment artist Arvin Bautista released images from a never-before-seen pitch of a Sonic racing game for the Game Boy Advance: Sonic EXTREME!
Going by the images released, it appears to have been a racing game that centered around hoverboards. Currently, little else is known about the project. Check out Bautista’s images below:
If that name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s not the only failed Sonic pitch to bear that name. In addition to Sonic’s infamous, canceled first 3D adventure on the SEGA Saturn, the name is also shared with another failed Sonic pitch from developer Vision Scape Interactive. Much like Backbone’s pitch, this pitch put Sonic and friends on hoverboards, although the game was centered around extreme sports rather then racing. Aside from the names and hoverboards, no other link between the two games is known.
This project could potentially be linked to another, more successful Sonic racing franchise, however. Years ago, Bautista and another former Backbone artist revealed that they had been working a Sonic Riders port for the GBA. No images of this port had ever been release, but it had reportedly been canceled by SEGA of America after SEGA of Japan requested the game be made “more 3D,” something the team couldn’t accomplish without a delay.
This isn’t the first time Bautista revealed art for a failed SEGA pitch, as he released images from two other pitches a few years ago. We have reached out to Bautista for further details on this project. Stay tuned to this post for further updates.
The GBA Sonics are some of my favorite games in general, even pinball party. Not counting the two genesis ports of course.
So I would’ve loved to get more sprite based games. For Riders though I have a hard time imagining an interesting conversion. The Jet Set Radio port/thing to GBA was not very good.
pretty cool haha, Sonic’s ear is white on the inside!
It seems like anything with “Extreme” attached to the title is doomed to fail when it comes to this franchise.
Cool stuff, it’d be great to get some more info. I’m instantly reminded of the Sonic Advance 1 special stages when looking at this so maybe there is a connection there too.