Sega unearths promotional screens for the cancelled Sonic X-treme

Via Twitter (which I refuse to ever call “X”), Sega has revealed screens of the canceled Sega Saturn title, Sonic X-treme.

Sega had a really rough time in the late ‘90s. The launch of the Sega Saturn was an absolute cluster of confusion, as they had one foot in 2D while sticking another right up in 3D. Not to mention, Sega of America misunderstood its own market and thought that adding life support to the Sega Genesis was the best idea, delaying the arrival of the Saturn in Western markets. Some people blame its failure on the fact that there was never a mainline Sonic the Hedgehog successor on the platform. Sure, yeah, that might be part of it.

Development on Sonic X-treme began shortly after the completion of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It started on the Genesis/Mega Drive before bouncing to the 32X and finally the Saturn. Initially, it was just going to be a better-looking side-scroller, but by the time it reached the Saturn, it became a hybrid of 2D and 3D, the style of which is very much obvious in these screenshots.

It’s hard to say exactly when these screenshots are from. The development of Sonic X-treme was marred by unclear hardware specs, developer fallout and turnover, the dysfunction between Sega’s Japan and American branches, and life-threatening illness. It’s an absolutely bizarre development story. There were a lot of different revisions to the game, all of them very different.

Hopefully, with these images unearthed, we’ll get to hear more of the tale. For now, we can only look and wonder how Sonic X-treme would have turned out.