Today’s Sonic Official on YouTube confirmed a long-standing concern about Sonic 3’s soundtrack in Sonic Origins. During the stream, Katie Chrzanowski, social media manager for SEGA, notes that the game will not have all the game’s original tracks. Instead, the game will have new original-hardware adaptations of the songs composed by Jun Senoue.

I know one question that we’ve seen over and over is, what is the situation on the music in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. So, while unfortunately we can’t use all of the original sounds from the SEGA Genesis version of the game, Jun Senoue’s been working really hard to adapt the original music that was composed in 1993 for Sonic Origins, and he’s been going so far as reproducing it with the same soundchip as the SEGA Genesis and using is own digital audio tape collection to make this, like, as faithful to the originals as possible.

Katie Chrzanowski, Sonic Official, Season 6 Episode 3, about 36:00

Sonic 3 has long had issues with re-releases due to music contributed by Michael Jackson and Brad Buxer. This includes Carnival Night Zone, Ice Cap Zone, Launch Base Zone, the Multiplayer menu, the Sonic 3 Act 1 boss music, and the Staff Roll. Unreleased beta versions of Sonic 3, as well as the 1997 Windows PC version of the game, used significantly different compositions in place of the tracks.

While it’s a shame that we won’t be hearing the iconic sounds of Ice Cap once again, it’s definitely encouraging that we’ll be getting new versions of the alternate songs from Senoue, who contributed to the original soundtracks of both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Though if you’re really itching for those original sounds… probably a good idea to keep an eye out on the modding scene after it launches.