Gonna Stop Fast
[Update: Amidst recent criticism regarding the state of Sonic Origins, Sonic social media manager Katie Chrzanowski has noted that the Sega team is aware of players’ issues with the title and that it is currently “working on fixing a variety of issues right now.” More information will be forthcoming.]
Hey! Thanks for the patience! The team's been listening and is working on fixing a variety of issues right now. We'll make sure to get some more official messaging out once we have more info for everyone. 🙂
— Katie – MiniKitty (@KatieChrz) July 14, 2022
A renowned modder has canceled their ongoing project to mod Sega’s latest release, Sonic Origins, stating that the state of the title’s game code is making their plans for the mod project unfeasible.
As reported by TheGamer, modder Xannan had been working on a homebrew project known as “BetterOrigins” — with the intent of mixing multiple in-game bugs, visual problems, misinterpreted text, and other off-key elements of the retro collection. Speaking candidly on mod website GameBanana, however, Xannan did not hold back their frustrations in working with the final release.
“Hey, so we decided to stop the development of this project. After really digging into the files for this game, it’s become way clearer that this game is absolute shit,” wrote Xannan. “We’ve fixed enough where the game is a bit more serviceable but really, especially without scripts, there’s not a whole lot we can ‘fix’ without just redoing sprites […] MAYBE I’ll come back to this in the future, when script editing becomes a thing. But for now, screw this game.”
While it would be easy to write off Xannan’s brutal comments as them simply not being part of the original development team, the modder is far from the first person to speak ill of Sonic Origins‘ final release. Almost immediately after launch, developers Headcannon and Christian Whitehead (of Sonic Mania fame), both lambasted the compendium, opining that the final product was not reflective of the work the teams had produced — or wanted to produce — for publisher Sega.
“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,” wrote Headcannon’s Simon Thomley on Twitter. “We weren’t too thrilled about its pre-submission state either but a lot was beyond our control. “We asked to do major fixes near submission but weren’t allowed due to submission and approval rules. 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.”
While the “BetterOrigins” mod did not see completion, it does feature several updates to correct color, animation, and Museum mode text, while also offering a filter displaying a more authentic 1:1 pixel style.
