The team of developers in charge of the most recent 2D outings (like Sonic Mania) of the blue blur, Headcannon, have returned to work alongside SEGA on the recently announced expansion of Sonic Origins Plus.

Back some months ago, Sonic Origins released on many platforms to mixed to poor reviews, many citing a lot of issues with the collection, be it weird changes made in Sonic 3's soundtrack for zones like Carnival Night, Ice Cap and Launch Base (which featured tracks used in the original beta, before the alleged involvement of Michael Jackson in the soundtrack), a lot of bugs and glitches in some of the ports, like AI misbehaving, or physics issues, mostly in Sonic 3's port specifically.

Even Stealth, one of the main developers in Headcannon and greatly known in the homebrew community for Sonic games, was really unhappy with the released product of Sonic Origins the day it came out, with many of the bugs and glitches that they still wanted to address, but couldn't due to some internal issues (most likely deadlines to be met for the game).

Thankfully enough, it seems like with the recent expansion announced a few weeks ago, SEGA wants to set the record straight, and are working alongside Headcannon on many of the new features announced for it, like a fully playable Amy in all 4 games in the collection, and the inclusion of Knuckles into Sonic CD. Not only that, but Headcannon mentions working on a lot of bugfixes that many people still have with the latest release of Sonic Origins, and that they plan to address them to give Sonic fans the best possible experience when it comes to the original classic collection of beloved titles.

Here's what the official Headcannon Twitter account mentioned regarding their work with SEGA on Sonic Origins Plus:

It's coming - Sonic Origins Plus! We're happy to announce that we’ve once again cooperated with SEGA to update this project; you know we can't resist Sonic! Here’s some of what you can look forward to in Origins Plus:

We were excited to hear that SEGA wanted to make Amy playable, and we couldn’t resist an opportunity to help her into the spotlight! New playable characters need new sprites, and our own @AStartShow was certainly up to the design task while @DashPadSPD performed data management.

Knuckles is now playable in Sonic CD, as well! As with the inclusion of playable Amy, we were thrilled to provide some new graphics to complement SEGA’s efforts in making this possible.

Alongside SEGA’s work in updating the collection, we were also able to supply a few additional updates and enhancements to help make the title the best it can be! We appreciate their openness to our feedback and suggestions.

We're very proud to have had a hand in bringing out the best In this collection; Sega have placed a lot of trust in us in by allowing this, and we appreciate that greatly! We can’t wait for you to experience it!

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[64bitmodels]

I don't know about that. If you use patched ROMs, you're confined to the hardware capabilities of a Megadrive.

including the 4:3 aspect ratio. Sonic does not play well with 4:3 aspect ratio, you at the very least need widescreen support which megadrive doesnt support (technically Genesis Plus GX has it but it's not designed around it the same way a native port is)

 

[pustal]

I kinda don't like they adding emulated game on game collection og old games ported to a new engine. I rather they focused in starting to do the same for the other games. Even if they released one port a time, I'd be willing to buy each one for a sensible price. Paying yet agaon to run an old game in a closed environment emulator at this day and age though...

 

[SonicRings]

It's even worse for those who bought the Digital Deluxe version.

...I'm still bitter.

At least you have your NFTs - I mean "JPG Backdrops" - to enjoy while playing these games in 4:3!

 

[urbanman2004]

I guess I'll still be emulating these recycled retro titles ‍♂...

 

[Idaho]

Kinda excited to see this release, I guess this is how the game should have released but I was not stupid enough to buy it on release when it was half baked so I don't mind...

I really couldn't care less about the Game Gear games tho, this is not the 2000s anymore, emulation is easy and accessible to anyone nowadays, dropping those games feels like an addition everyone was expecting because it is tradition in Sonic compilations but it has become irrelevant...

Now that all classic Sonic games have been taken care of and that we even got Sonic Mania, I'd really love to see a remake of Chaotix made by headcanon where they freely reinterpret the game to make it actually fun and interesting, I guess that would be the next step for the RSDK and their endeavor with the Sonic franchise...

 

[Quanrantyl]

This is absurd