Sonic P-06

Sonic the Hedgehog (commonly referred to as Sonic '06) is a 2006 platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was intended to be a reboot of the Sonic franchise,[2] with a more realistic setting than previous games.[3] The game faced serious behind-the-scenes problems that forced Sonic Team to rush development,[4] and upon release it received unfavorable reviews for its story, controls, camera, bugs, and long load times. According to Engadget: "many consider Sonic '06 to be the lowest point in the franchise... Most Sonic fans want to forget the game was ever released."[2] The game was never released on Windows personal computers despite pre-release advertisements suggesting it would do so, so some Sonic fans have made unofficial efforts to develop a port.[2] Beginning in 2015,[5] a group led by developers Gistix and Mefiresu worked on a port of Sonic the Hedgehog using the Unity game engine, and released a number of demos between 2017 and 2018.[2][6] Although development on the project has continued, progress has slowed, and Gistix is no longer involved.[2]

Sonic P-06 is being developed by Argentinian programmer ChaosX. ChaosX had been a Sonic fan since childhood, when he received a Sega Genesis with a copy of the original Sonic the Hedgehog (1991).[2] He played through the Genesis Sonic library. When he got a PlayStation 2 (PS2) in 2010, he played its Sonic releases, as he was "addicted to Sonic the Hedgehog and gaming overall by that point," and when he got a computer, he played more Sonic titles like the Sonic Adventure games.[2] It was after getting the computer that ChaosX learned of the 2006 game, and it immediately fascinated him. "Its advertisements, atmosphere, tone and sound, CGI, graphics... everything resonated with me... It grabbed my attention like crazy."[2] ChaosX unsuccessfully attempted to get a copy of the game despite being aware it had been poorly received; this did not matter to him.[2]

It was during this time that ChaosX began to dabble in game development, having learned of the Sonic fangame community. He began working in Blitz3D before switching to Unity in 2014. His first project in Unity was the World Adventure Project, an effort to port the 2008 game Sonic Unleashed—which, similar to the 2006 game, he had no way of playing—to Windows.[2] He abandoned the World Adventure Project after realizing he had the ability to remake Sonic the Hedgehog in Unity and thus be able to experience it. He also saw the opportunity to fix its problems and restore content that had been scrapped during development, "[giving] it a second chance."[2] Although he had never played the game, ChaosX, from analyzing gameplay footage, had a strong sense of what he needed to recreate. He made a folder housing gigabytes of reference material, including footage from both prerelease and post-release.[2]

ChaosX started with the few pieces of the original code that are accessible, and began by remaking each level while ignoring or hiding the problems that are present in the official game.[2] However, he has had to develop much of P-06 from scratch, such as the animations, textures, shaders, and typefaces, and gathered some assets from Unity. ChaosX recruited numerous individuals to help development. Scottish developer "Gotta Play Fast" used Autodesk 3ds Max to combine the separate model files for Sonic so he would work better in Unity, while "BeatZ" assisted ILikeMen in creating textures, model rigging, and polishing collision detection. Other contributors include "Daguar", "Volcano the Bat", "Wiz Genesis", "Hero", "Sajid", "LuRodSil", "HyperPolygon64", "KnuxFan24", Thomas James Baker, and "BrianuuuSonic".[2] Many contributors consider their work minor, as much of the actual development is handled by ChaosX.[2]

ChaosX released the first demo of P-06—containing two levels, "Wave Ocean" and "Kingdom Valley"—in April 2019.[2][7] An update containing bug fixes, improved widescreen support, and other minor improvements, was released the following month. The second demo, which added the three levels "Dusty Desert", "Flame Core", and "Radical Train", was released in October 2019, and a bug-fix update was released in November. Following the November update, ChaosX took a break to focus on other projects. He is unsure when the remake will be complete: "A wild guess would probably be in two years, but I'm very unsure about that."[2] A third demo was released in July 2020 which added the rest of the stages in Sonic's story,[8][9] followed by an update in August 2020 that addressed numerous bugs in the previous build.[10]