The Sonic Origins developer is possibly the best choice Sega could have made in picking a studio to remaster some of the best platform games on PC, as it was worked on by Headcannon – otherwise known as the Sonic Mania team.
Earlier today, Sega announced that the long-in-development Sonic Origins – the remastered collection of the Mega Drive/Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog games – is down for a release this summer, but there was some question about quality. Some ports of these games in the past have been downright disastrous, although the likes of Christian Whitehead and Headcannon were praised for giving Sonic some decent re-releases.
After developing Sonic Mania, the teams seemingly backed away from the franchise, with some of them working on a new 3D platformer. However, the team at Headcannon has confirmed it’s working on Sonic Origins. The developer remade Sonic 3 & Knuckles, specifically, and assisted in the production of the other games in the collection – Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Sonic CD.
At the very least, this should guarantee a good remastered port of Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
Of the remade #SonictheHedgehog games, Headcannon previously assisted in preproduction of SCD, co-developed S1 and S2, and now, developed a similarly enhanced S3&K! #SonicOrigins and its integration and presentation of these games is separately created and curated by @Sega.
— Headcannon (@Head_cannon) April 20, 2022
Hey! Remember how I repeatedly said "If Sega wants me to remake Sonic 3 (& Knuckles) I'll do it"? Well, needing this game to complete their planned #SonicOrigins collection of remakes, Sega asked me to take on this huge task, and I recruited some of my Headcannon buddies to help!
— Stealth (@HCStealth) April 20, 2022
Of course, this won’t mollify the fans who are upset about the baffling series of pre-order bonuses, gameplay choices, and microtransactions Sonic Origins seems to be saddled with – which includes releasing menu animations and additional music tracks as separate DLC, removing rings from the Anniversary mode – plus, locking widescreen to this mode – and making it so the Digital Deluxe Edition doesn’t feature all the game’s content.
Sonic Origins is set to release in June on Steam and Epic Games Store.