Video: Sonic Utopia is a fan-made game that’s pretty much being made by one guy, The Great Lange, who wants to “expand on Sonic gameplay in an intuitive way in 3D”, while at the same time “capture the best of Sonic’s style and tie it together in a cohesive experience”.
The animation and art look cool! They also show off the fundamental problem with Sonic in the 3D era, in that it might be impossible to translate the core design and speed of the 2D games in an open arena like this.
That hasn’t stopped Sega from trying over the past 20 years, though, and it’s not stopping Sonic Utopia, which while still early in development can still be downloaded for a spin here.
Comments
6 responses to “Open-World Sonic The Hedgehog Game Being Made By One Fan”
Uhh, this project actually looks like nothing but proof that it is definitely possible. This is a good example of where I’ve wanted Sonic to go for years.
Great job on the camera movement – that’s often what kills concepts like this because the view goes wonko when going upside down, but here it flows very nicely with the tilts and loops.
This is the 3D Sonic game we want and deserve!
Someone get this man “insert current popular crowdfunding website” now so I can hand all my dollars over to him
Sega must see this and think….”Damn, one person just fucking schooled us on our own property”
This looks insanely fun. I’d loooove to play a full blown game of this. Probably would be the best sonic game ever made.
Awesome execution, but I still think the concept is flawed and likely ultimately impossible to make work. I mean… why would you go out of your way to anywhere that is not the fastest course to the end? In 2D Sonic it works, because even detours or completely different paths eventually take you to the end. But in a 3D expanse around you? There’s no guidance, no direction and if you have to backtrack or stop to make sense of your bearings, it’s going against the spirit of speed of Sonic.
In other words, I don’t think Sonic works unless it’s within rails. And that’s not a bad thing, nor it means that people need to figure how to! Not every game needs to be made in every genre.
I find this demo satisfying mainly because of the physics. You roll down a hill, you go faster. It’s so simple but it’s one of the big reason the originals are fun to play. If the speed isn’t “earned” then you don’t have agency as a player and it’s not satisfying when you DO go fast. I like how there’s speedruns already. Fun to watch