Sonic Extreme (found prototype build of cancelled Xbox skateboarding game; 2003)

Title Screen

Status: Found

Date found: 24 Jul 2016

Sonic Extreme (not to be confused with Sonic X-Treme) is a cancelled 2003 skateboarding game for the Xbox created by Vision Scape Interactive.^[1]

Gameplay

Sonic Extreme was a Extreme Sports game in which the players controlled Sonic on a hoverboard, and possibly would have more characters from the series.^[2] But the prototype only showed Sonic and Shadow^[3] The team retooled Bare Knuckle Grind to resemble Sonic games; An example is that the world was based off of Green Hill Zone.^[3] The Prototype featured three gamemodes:

”Mission"
"Combat"
"Race"

Mission was single player and involved the player into finding keys to unlock a room with the Chaos Emerald. Collecting the emerald will return the player to the title screen. Combat was a split-screen multiplayer mode where players would attack each other with explosives.^[1] Race was a multiplayer game mode where the players will pitted against each other in a race.^[3]^[2]

Development

Mark McDonald, the cofounder of Vision Scape decided to pitch a spin-off that uses the Bare Knuckle Grind engine with Sonic’s IP^[2]^[4] The prototype was made in a week in 2003 without Sega’s knowledge about the game^[5]^[3] The game was made on the Xbox because of Vision Scape’s experience on making games for the Xbox, with intention to port it to the PS2 and GameCube.^[2]

McDonald then hold a meeting with Yuji Naka and showed the prototype. According to McDonald, Naka was very impressed and said that the project will moved forward as a collaboration. Vision Scape’s management thought they had secured the deal. However, Sega didn’t respond to Vision and cut communication with them after Sonic Heroes cutscenes were completed. McDonald never took Sega silence personally, assuming it has their own plans. Thus, Sonic Extreme never came to fruition.^[3]

Sonic Riders and Closure

In September 2005, Sega announced Sonic Riders, a new Sonic game Sega was developing. Vision Scape was stunned on the similarities it has between Sonic Riders and Sonic Extreme by the characters riding hoverboards, performing trick through worlds, and even the games modes were presented in Sonic Riders, just heavily modified. McDonald believed this was the reason of Sega’s silence of taking Vision Scape’s concept and went with a different direction. McDonald asked his agent if they can take legal action, but his agent stated that the Non-Disclosure Agreement they signed with Sega during Sonic Heroes development gave Sega ownership of anything that uses Sega’s IP, which meant that Sega legally owns Sonic Extreme.^[5]

Vision Scape then closed in 2006, sending their development hardware to a recycling plant to dispose it, though, Sonic Extreme was lucky enough to survive and was traded between collectors.^[2]

Availability

In May 2011, user, “ProtonX3” released videos and publicly revealed Sonic Extreme, demonstrating the environments and modes. However, this gotten poorly received by video game journalists like Game Informer, VG247, and GameRadar.

On July 2016, Andrew Borman, a video game preservationist and now owner of the prototype released the build onto Hidden Palace, making the build become playable and found.^[6]