Sonic Mania Dev Clarifies Involvement With Sonic Origins, Says It’s “Purely A Sega-Developed Product”

Sonic Mania developer Headcannon, who has also worked on a few classic Sonic games, has clarified its involvement with the upcoming release Sonic Origins.

It previously mentioned on social media how it had been “working with Sega to re-create Sonic 3 & Knuckles for their upcoming Sonic Origins collection” it seems that’s as far as it goes. In a new series of tweets, it’s now addressed some misunderstandings regarding its involvement in the project.

Headcannon did not actually work on Origins, and it didn’t do anything extra for Sonic 1,2 or CD. It built the engine for S3&K separately. So who was behind the changes and additions? It was a Sega “internal team”, and Origins is “purely” a Sega developer project.

To address a misunderstanding regarding Headcannon’s involvement in #SonicOrigins- We DID NOT work on Origins itself, nor did we do any additional work on Sonic 1, 2, or CD. We were contracted to build a Retro Engine version of S3&K as a separate project from Sega’s Sonic Origins

Headcannon’s work used in #SonicOrigins, including S3&K, was implemented into Origins by Sega’s internal team, who also made any Origins-specific changes/additions themselves. We’re proud to have our work featured as PART of Sonic Origins, but it’s purely a Sega-developed product

To further clarify, as it’s been asked, yes, this includes Mission Mode. Sega’s team developed the missions, as well as Boss Rush, Mirror Mode, etc internally. The only distinct mode that Headcannon created was Blue Spheres, and its implementation into Origins was handled by Sega

Sonic Mania’s lead developer, director and programmer Christian Whitehead has also mentioned his own links to the upcoming collection:

Alright, looks like I can finally come clean and say that RSDK(v5U) is putting in work on Origins

I am proud to contributed with my past work with @HCStealth on the previous remasters which are represented here. @Head_cannon has carried the torch to complete S3K I am excited to see the results

As highlighted by Sonic Stadium, this information also suggests that these versions of the games within Origins are likely to be (mostly) the same as existing Retro Engine versions previously released.

So, there you go – Head Cannon and even Whitehead are represented in the project, but it’s “developed” by Sega’s internal team. What do you make of all this? Leave a comment down below.