Lost Media Original Never-Before-Seen Screenshots of Cancelled Game 'Sonic X-treme' Unearthed

[Dreadknux]

Now this is a treat! A trio of original, never-before-seen screenshots of cancelled SEGA Saturn game 'Sonic X-treme' have been uncovered and shared on social media, courtesy of SEGA's retro team at SEGA Forever.

According to the SEGA Forever post, these are the real deal - original screenshots of the game in action that were prepared for use in promotional material and magazine articles. These aren't scans of existing images either.

If you've never seen us harp on about the game (and we've been doing so since 2001!), Sonic X-treme was an ill-fated Sonic the Hedgehog platformer that was destined for the SEGA Saturn before it was unceremoniously cancelled. It was being developed by SEGA Technical Institute in the US, as Sonic Team was busy at the time working on NiGHTS and other projects, and as a result it would have been the key Sonic title for the system if it had released.

Unfortunately, a number of production issues - including stressed developers working themselves to sickness under tight deadlines and a refusal from Yuji Naka to leverage Sonic Team's NiGHTS engine - ultimately led the project to its doom. Which is a shame because as you can see, it brought Sonic into the 3D space using some interesting visual and gameplay approaches.

You can see in these crisp new screens a number of enemies planned for the game, as well as two specific stages and the use of one of Sonic's new moves for the game, the Spin Slash. There are rings littered across the stage geometry, pointing to one of the project's gameplay gimmicks - being able to run up walls and have the camera follow you around as you go.

It's always nice to see high quality material from SEGA's vault, and even better when it's long lost content concerning unreleased games. We appreciate SEGA Forever's work to keep fans informed of lovely new media like this, and we hope they have more to share up its collective sleeve in the future.

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[LegoFedora]

The more that gets shown of this game, the more I wish it released. Even if it wouldn't have been good, it'd be such a neat little curiosity to be able to play. Kind of like 3D Blast is.

I hope one day Sonic Team releases it (even if in a probably unfinished/extremely taped together state) as a bonus in a collection or something. Like they wanted to do with the Sonic 1 beta back with the mega collection. If they even have the source code that is.

[Memelord2020]

Imagine if at Gamescom, SEGA announces that they’ll be making Sonic X-treme from the ground up.

[Knight Terror]

Nice to this game still being preserved.

[sonicclaasic]

It such a shame really It couldn't of been a great Sonic game on the Sega Saturn. I can understand the stress of work they have been going through thought like working around the clock trying to finish working on the game.

Most of been really tough thought and again stressful as well for them.

[Johnny2071]

9 hours ago, sonicclaasic said:

It such a shame really It couldn't of been a great Sonic game on the Sega Saturn. I can understand the stress of work they have been going through thought like working around the clock trying to finish working on the game.

Most of been really tough thought and again stressful as well for them.

There's nothing that says we can't get a spiritual revival from a different developer. Between this game and Sonic Jam, we have enough concepts for a classic 3D Sonic game that we never got. Jam's hubworld and 3D models for Sonic and Tails, Tiara, Prof. Gazebo, the Ring of Order, the Galaxy Fortress, Chaz, Gabby, Xtreme's unique stages for each character repurposed as special stages, the many music tracks between both games. A NiGHTS cameo can even be worked in as a fun extra. There's enough to work with to create the ultimate 3D classic Sonic game (not to dethrone the Dreamcast games).

[Stitchlips25]

Honestly i'd love to see this get finished as a small side project or something, for the switch. Just seeing this sorta old, 3D style makes me all nostalgic and fuzzy :D 

[Terramax]

I'm pretty certain that I saw both of these screenshots in Official Sega Saturn Magazine back in the day. Definitely that first screenshot.

[KayDen]

i like the aesthetic, but as a game it looks way too rough. i got to say i'm convinced xtreme itself is barely anything besides a sort of tech demo or a kind of tech research project.