Fan-made mod of Sonic Origins stopped with three words: “Screw this game”

Three weeks after launching on modern consoles and PCs, the retro gaming collection Sonic Origins has come under constant fire from various fans and critics, each exposing issues ranging from the nitpicky to the noticeable. Without a formal response from Sega about if and when the collection would get a patch, a group of fans took it upon themselves to provide their own mod on PC – only to confirm that they immediately shut down and removed their efforts.

The mod in question, called BetterOrigins, was on hand to correct apparently disloyal elements in the Sonic Origins versions of classic Sonic The Hedgehog games. Specifically, the mod had already swapped art and sprites as some of them were taken from different games. (For example, the animation “slipping” in Sonic Origins‘ version of sonic 1 was actually lifted from Sonic CDwhich the mod corrected.)

But as the group of apparently three modders made progress with various art swaps and patches, the team ran into a brick wall at Sonic speeds: the game’s “script” access was locked. “After really digging into the files for this game, it’s [sic] becomes much clearer that this game is absolute shit,” wrote a modder named XanmanP in a post that has since been deleted. Until Sega gives fans access to the game’s scripts, he wrote: “There’s not much ‘fixing’ without sprites.” (XanmanP didn’t immediately answer Ars Technica’s questions about what this script access might look like.)

The mod page originally suggested the project might return one day, then added, “For now, screw this game up”. This update, posted on Tuesday, was followed hours later by a total shutdown and removal of the bitter update text. XanmanP clarified why: “Now this mod is never coming back. All this news sites posting about what I’ve said is way too much for me. I’m done.”

Stealth comes out of hiding

Examples of significant Sonic Origins bugs, which were not addressed by the BetterOrigins mod before the GameBanana page was edited, include huge computational spikes on PC when the game is left in the “main menu” interface, replete with 3D models of classic characters; a bug in sonic 2 causing the series’ popular sidekick Tails to jump endlessly (and make repeated jumping noises that can’t be stopped) and get completely out of the screen’s line of sight; a video playback issue in the Switch version of Sonic CD† and a bug that could clear the progress of collecting “Chaos Emeralds” in certain games.

These issues are in addition to the overall price-to-content ratio I mentioned in my review of the Origin collection, which were compounded by a puzzling decision to lock certain aesthetic and “museum” content behind DLC paywalls.

Today’s mod project shutdown follows a disturbing statement on launch day in June made by Stealth, a longtime Sonic game mod and programmer. Stealth is credited as a member of the Headcannon development team loved by the Sonic community for his work on the series’ widescreen ports for smartphones, along with his contributions to the critically acclaimed Sonic Mania† on Origin‘ launch day, Stealth warned that there were “wild critters” in the collection, for which he took some responsibility.

“Each of us is very unhappy about the state of Origin and even the sonic 3 component,” Stealth wrote in a long twitter thread† “We weren’t too thrilled with the pre-submission state either, but a lot was out of our control.” The thread claims that requests to delay the game or submit major last minute fixes were rejected by Sega, although Stealth makes it clear that certain Sega staffers were great to work with, the thread isn’t the biggest sources of this grudge indicates.

Stealth hasn’t posted on Twitter since the late June thread went live. As of the publication of this article, Sega has not yet responded to Ars’ questions about if and when fans can expect patches Sonic Origins on one of its platforms.