One of the developers hired by Sega to work on Sonic 1 and 2 Remastered has endorsed a fan campaign to persuade the company to release a remake of the third game in the series.
Simon Thomley, better known to members of the Sonic community as Stealth, made his name creating unofficial Sonic the Hedgehog fan games before being approached by Sega to assist fellow programmer and Sonic scene member Christian Whitehead in remaking the first two games in the classic Genesis series for mobile devices.
Back in October, the pair released a proof-of-concept teaser trailer for Sonic 3 & Knuckles Remastered, in time for the game’s 20th anniversary. Thomley revealed yesterday that the prototype was actually presented to Sega back at E3 2014, but was not picked up by the company.
Writing in a personal capacity on his blog, the developer stated that despite maintaining a near-complete silence on the matter in the past, now was the right time to make his own feelings public. In the post, Stealth expressed his disappointment over his pitch not being green-lighted by Sega, and urged fans to participate in both a letter-writing campaign, launched last month, as well as a recently created petition, in an attempt to change the company’s mind.
The developer added that rumoured music licensing issues being to blame for the lack of approval was a “distinct possibility”, and urged fans to let Sega know that they would be happy with the release of the game even if it featured a soundtrack with a number of necessary alterations.
The post follows a recent tweet Thomley made on the game’s 21st anniversary, in which he had hinted that he was still very much interested in developing Sonic 3 Remastered:
.@sonic_hedgehog @SEGA @SEGA_OFFICIAL Certainly something to be proud of; You guys know where to look to get it the same treatment as 1&2 😛
— Stealth (@HCStealth) February 2, 2015
Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the last game released in the original series on the Genesis, and is considered by many as the defining platformer of the 16-bit era. Due to time constraints, it was originally split into two halves: Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. The release of the latter title in late 1994 brought with it an additional cartridge slot to allow players to ‘lock on’ Sonic 3 and enjoy the entire game as it was originally intended.
Will you be getting behind the fan campaign? Would you accept a remastered Sonic 3 even without some of its most iconic music? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
