Sonic Origins developer Simon Thomley has hit out at Sega following a rocky launch of the remaster collection.
Thomley, who is the founder of Headcannon, the co-development studio for Sonic Origins, has taken to Twitter to vent his frustrations, alleging that Sega introduced “wild bugs” into the game.
“This is frustrating,” he said. “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.”
This is frustrating. 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.
— Stealth (@HCStealth) June 24, 2022
Headcannon previously worked with Sega on the well-received Sonic Mania in 2017. It assisted with Sonic Origins, remastering Sonic 3 & Knuckles for the collection. However, Thomley now alleges that he and his team essentially worked on “a separate project that was then wrangled into something entirely different”.
“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,” said Thomley. “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. It's absolutely not perfect and some of it is from us. It's complicated.”
Essentially, Thomley states that he and his team are unhappy with the state of the game.
Since its release, a number of bugs and issues affecting Sonic Origins have been reported by eager fans, and the overall reception has already been less than positive.
“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 even the Sonic 3 component,” he said. “We weren't too thrilled about its pre-submission state either but a lot was beyond our control.”
Sonic fans have been disappointed with the number of bugs, such as Tails becoming stuck off-screen in Sonic 2, as well as particle issues and instances of Sonic getting stuck on hills.
"We asked to do major fixes near submission but weren't allowed due to submission and approval rules," said Thomley. "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,” he added. “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."
Elsewhere, Sonic fans aren’t happy after Sonic Origins replaced the original soundtrack for Sonic 3, while Sonic creator Yuji Naka has walked back his suggestion that Michael Jackson was involved with those original tracks.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.