Sonic Origins Dev Explains Development Issues, Hopes To See Them Resolved

Simon “Stealth” Thomley, developer at Headcanon, took to Twitter to express his frustration with the development of Sonic Origins. Him and the others at Headcannon were involved with the development of Sonic 3 & Knuckles remaster featured in Sonic Origins.

Thomley made it clear that the build of Sonic 3 & Knuckles that the studio handed over to Sega wasn’t free of issues. However, the build that ended up in the final release is also not what Headcannon turned in to Sega.

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

With regards to Sonic Origins, Simon claims him and the developers at Headcannon were treated as outsiders, who were creating a separate project that was then wrangled into the rest of the project, which was fundamentally very different. They knew heading into the project that there would be a major time crunch. The studio worked itself into the ground to meet deadlines just so Sonic Origins could be released on schedule.

Thomley said that he takes full responsibility for his and his team’s mistakes. They made some mistakes, overlooked certain things, and did some rush jobs, and some things they were aware of but weren’t allowed to correct near the end of the development cycle. He admitted that their work wasn’t perfect.

I don't remember this ring being this janky? #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/2YGZiLACe8

— Ned (@ned_ballad) June 23, 2022

However, Simon discussed that thing were more complicated than they may seem. He’s expressed his gratitude to the team for their performance under such pressure, but he added that everyone at Headcannon is very unhappy about the state Sonic Origins is in, including the Sonic 3 & Knuckles component. The studio wasn’t too thrilled about the latter’s state pre-submission either, but a lot of things were beyond their control.

When Thomley and others at Headcannon approached Sega for permission to do major fixes close to project submission, they weren’t allowed due to submission and approval rules. According to Thomley, the studio had also asked for a possible delay earlier on, but they were told that it wasn’t possible. 

Since release, Headcannon has offered to work on post-release fixes and updates, but it isn’t clear at this point whether they’ll be given the opportunity to return to the project.