Once upon a time, tech-savvy kids could code their own games, sell them to publishers, and enter the computer world that way. ‘Bedroom coders’ became a fad, especially in places where microcomputers like the Commodore 64 were big. Nowadays, they tend to get into software development in more typical, boring ways. But they haven’t gone away. If they’re not making indie games, they’re experimenting with ROM hacks and fan games.
Not every company is happy to see their IPs fiddled with like this, yet some tacitly tolerate it. For example, there have been a range of Sonic the Hedgehog fan games and ROM hack competitions that have run for years, even decades, without Sega calling foul on them thus far. In some cases, they may have helped their collaborators get work at the Blue Blur’s company. Here are some of the best Sonic fan games that can be found on the net.
Updated August 1, 2023, by David Heath: Sonic Origins Plus came out back on June 23, 2023, and improved upon the original collection with a few features that probably should have been there to begin with, like Knuckles being playable in Sonic CD, and Amy Rose being playable in every game. It made Sega's original decision to charge people real money for main menu animations seem weird at best.
However, for some people, even these extras felt ho-hum. Over 2 decades' worth of fan games have put new characters into old games, changed how the classic games were played, or were made completely from scratch. With the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE) 2023 coming up on September 1, there's bound to be more incoming. Until then, they can play more of the best fan made Sonic games.
15 Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit
The biggest additions to Sonic Origins Plus were the 12 Game Gear titles, many of which had previously appeared in older collections. As neat as they are, they don't look great blown up from their Game Gear aspect ratio. Savvy players can at least find the Master System releases of 8-bit Sonic 1, 2 and Chaos to avoid the screen crunch. But the best of the bunch, Sonic Triple Trouble, was a Game Gear exclusive and doesn't have an alternative port.
So Noah N.Copeland made his own with 16-bit graphics in Game Maker, sprucing the game up and updating the controls. Sonic can now do Sonic Mania's Drop Dash alongside Triple Trouble's Strike Dash. He can use the Elemental Shields from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and he can tag out to Tails (who can swim and fly). Knuckles, Fang the Sniper, and Metal Sonic can be unlocked as playable characters too, so there's plenty for players to sink their teeth into.
14 Metal Sonic Rebooted
Players have to beat Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit once as Sonic and Tails to unlock Knuckles, then beat it as Knuckles to play as the Blue Blur's metallic menace. But if they want him in his own game, Lone Devil reworked the original Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog 2 into Metal Sonic Rebooted. In it, Metal Sonic has to prove he's not obsolete to Dr. Eggman by destroying his new badniks and collecting the Chaos Emeralds before them.
Metal Sonic comes with some special abilities. For five rings, he can blast ahead with the Overdrive Attack, or shoot diagonally in midair with the Diagonal Aerial Dash. The vertical equivalent, which can be used to find new shortcuts or level areas, requires 10 rings. He can also go into Overclocked Mode with 200 Rings, where he's faster and invincible, but it drains his rings faster than Super mode and doesn't work underwater. As a plus, he can't drown, so that's still a plus over the walking pincushion.
13 Sonic Time Twisted
Sonic Time Twisted began development in 2005, tweaked by multiple hands overseen by Overbound until its official release in 2017. The game combines elements from Sonic CD and the Genesis games. Sonic and friends have to collect the Chaos Emeralds and the Time Stones to stop Metal Sonic. Players can pick Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles to explore the Past and Future versions of eight zones.
Players can use Sonic 3's Elemental Shields, alongside three new ones that let Sonic fly (Wind), resist spikes (Rock), and freeze badniks (Ice). Players might need them, as they need to time travel via posts a la Sonic CD and find the Special Stage rings in both the Past and Future to get the Emeralds and Stones. They both involve beating Metal Sonic in a race, with the Past ones resembling his boss fight in Sonic CD, and the Future ones being like Sonic 2's special stages. They all have to be beaten to get all the stones and access the true final zone. So, no pressure.
12 Sonic World DX
There aren't many 3D fan games out there, since they require beefier hardware and programming skills. After all, it's taken a total of 14 people nearly ten years to whip Sonic World DX into shape across its multiple revisions. This fan game has 40+ playable characters and 50+ stages featuring a variety of missions from the standard race to the goal to time attack races and treasure hunting.
It's essentially aiming to be the ultimate edition of Sonic Adventure, with everyone from the first two Adventure games, Sonic Heroes, Sonic '06, and Sonic Mania as playable characters. It even has a few deep dives like Sonic the Fighters' Bark the Polar Bear, Shade the Echidna from Sonic Chronicles, and Tiara from the canceled Sonic Xtreme game. All ten releases can be found on the Sonic World DX website. They recommended Release 8 as the most stable version, and it works best on Windows. It's more fiddly on Max and Linux.
11 Sonic Smackdown
Aside from Sonic the Fighters, Sonic Battle, and the Hedgehog's appearances in the Super Smash Bros games, Sonic and co haven't dabbled in fighting games much. Luckily, fans of both Sonic and fighters have the best of both worlds in ArcForged's Sonic Smackdown, available via their Itch.io page.
The game has Sonic, his friends, and his enemies brawl it out in one-on-one fights. Inspired by Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, it has fast & frenetic gameplay that's big on combos, aerial moves, and offers 5 levels of super meter to play with. Players can get to grips with the controls via its Entertainment Mode, tackle its arcade ladder in Classic Mode, or take on their friends in Versus Mode either locally or online via Parsec. For a free fangame, it stands way above Sonic's official fighters.
10 Sonic Utopia
The biggest Sonic fans were initially skeptical of Sonic Frontiers' open-world gameplay for a variety of reasons: how will it work, why are the environments so barren, trend-chasing, etc. Some may have also compared it to Mr. Lange's fan game from 2020. It was a 3D, open-world game based on the classic Sonic games, complete with Green Hill Zone's features. It's one of the most ambitious Sonic fangames around, arguably improving on Frontiers in some areas.
Players can run, spindash, and Peel-Out up and down slopes, along tracks, in and out of water, through tunnels and tubes, and more. However, while the game has been worked on since its first demo in 2016, it still has just the one zone to play around in. This is likely because most of its assets were made from scratch, with just a few borrowed sound samples and effects here and there. Mr Lange's goal is to have six different zones, each with its own boss a la Sonic the Hedgehog 1. However, as of 2023, it's just a really fun Green Hill-themed playground.
9 Sonic: Project Hero
What would Sonic Utopia look like if Mr. Lange bit the bullet and took assets from Sonic Generations, Sonic Forces, and elsewhere? They'd have Sonic: Project Hero by Hero, another 3D open-world game that popped up in 2019 and is still currently being worked on. It uses enemies, power-ups, music, and more from its official counterparts. However, it also has a few unique features of its own, like more playable characters.
Sonic is there as usual with his running, jumping, and Elemental Shields. Then Tails returns, with Sonic Adventure-style flight and Sonic 06-style bomb attacks (sans pointless dummy rings). Finally, there's Knuckles, who can glide and beat up enemies directly with his fists. By default, it has just the one, Green Hill-style test level to test the silky smooth physics with, but it is possible to mod in levels from other games like Sonic Unleashed to really test its mettle.
8 Sonic P-06
The 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog on the PS3 and Xbox 360, or Sonic '06 for short, is notoriously bad. The wonky physics, glitches, glacial load times, and woeful storytelling all came together to produce Sonic's nadir as a mascot. Many of its problems were due to its chaotic development, where its staff were either gradually divided off into other projects like Sonic and the Secret Rings, or left the company altogether like the now-infamous Yuji Naka.
Still, there was a chance it could've been good, judging by Ian 'ChaosX' Moris' Sonic the Hedgehog: Project 2006, or Sonic P-06 for short. Since 2019, he has been rebuilding the game level by level within the Unity Engine, and it plays like a dream. All the characters are faster and more responsive, with more detailed graphics, heavily reduced load times, and new gameplay features like Super Sonic. While it's essentially a series of demos at this point, the game now has all of Sonic, Shadow, and Silver's levels via its April 2023 update.
7 Sonic The Hedgehog Megamix
Making fan games isn’t a surefire way to get hired by one big company or another. However, it’s one way to make an interesting resume. Before Simon ‘Stealth’ Thomley put together Headcannon Studios and co-created Sonic Mania and Sonic Origins, he worked with other notable coders on Sonic Megamix. It was an ambitious fangame that redrew and tweaked the original Sonic the Hedgehog levels and threw in new sound effects, music, moves, and characters.
Sonic, Tails, Shadow, and Mighty all turned up, each with their own moves from the Lightspeed Dash to the time-stopping Chaos Control. The project stalled when it moved to a 4.0 beta build for Sega CD hardware and emulators. But the 3.0 build is stable and works with Genesis emulators and machines. The particularly sneaky can even find cartridge versions on the black market, but it’s safer (and cheaper) to search for it online.
6 Sonic 1: The Next Level
Developed by MarkeyJester and GalliumGrant, Sonic 1: The Next Level swept the 2015 Sonic Hacking Contest. It won the most trophies out of any entry in the contest’s history up to that point, despite it being a relatively short game. It only has 3 Acts and a Boss round, but it had new level assets, new music, new badniks, and smoother animation than the original game. That’s not to mention some new gameplay mechanics like antigravity and hoverbikes.
The game also caught on beyond the Sonic Hacking community, appearing in features in Retro Gamer magazine. Footage of it was even used for Netflix’s High Score series in its episode on the Console War between the Genesis and SNES. The episode clearly displayed its title, gimmicks, and references (‘Jester Stream Technology’), but someone at Netflix somehow mistook it for a legit Sonic game. If only.
5 Sonic: Before The Sequel
Ever found it weird when a series has an installment that’s a sequel or prequel to just one specific game? Like how the Street Fighter Alpha series (Zero in Japan) takes place before Street Fighter 2 but after Street Fighter 1? That’s what Sonic: Before the Sequel does for Sonic. Made by LakeFepard, who'd go on to make the Spark the Electric Jester games, S:BtS gives the hedgehog a new adventure where he meets Tails for the first time.
It’s a very beefy game, with 12 zones to go through, with all but the final one having 3 acts per zone: two gameplay acts, and a boss one. If players want the game’s good ending, they have to beat the game in under 2 hours to get it. Any longer and they’ll get the bad ending. Sonic isn’t as loaded with moves like in Sonic the Hedgehog Megamix, but he has his spindash and Sonic CD’s Super Peel-Out. Tails can fly as well, unlike in the original Genesis sequel.
4 Sonic: After The Sequel
If LakeFeperd could make a ‘Sonic 1.5’, why not a ‘Sonic 2.5’? Thus, Sonic: After the Sequel was made, with 10 new zones following the same structure as in the previous game; with the first nine having 2 levels, and 1 boss act each. Only now, players can find a hidden ring in each zone to jump into and play a secret version of that level with different weather effects. This game gets rid of the time limit system for the good ending, which might be a relief for some.
Instead, players can pick a Story Mode to automatically see the good ending, or a Classic Mode to do the usual Sonic thing and grab the Chaos Emeralds via special stages to get it. Sonic now has access to elemental shields like the Fire and Water ones from Sonic 3, and a new Spike one. If eager Sonic fans do seek this one out, it’s best to track down the ‘DX’ version from 2017, which adjusts the physics and gives Sonic the Drop Dash from Sonic Mania.
3 Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited
Be it in its original form or in the Plus re-release, Sonic Origins is a fine collection, especially as it has the first re-release of Sonic 3 & Knuckles in ages. Still, it has a few issues, like the remixed music not being as good as the ‘Michael Jackson music’, and generally not being as polished as Headcannon Studios would’ve liked. However, the modding community has provided an alternative. With just a legal ROM of Sonic 3&K, players can stick Eukaryot and DJ Spindash’s Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited mod onto it.
It gives players a ton of options to play with. They can switch the soundtrack around to regain those classic tunes, play the prototype music, or use DJ Spindash's new tracks. Players could also choose between the Sonic 3&K level layout or using the harder Sonic 3 layout. Solo players can make Tails lift Sonic (or Knuckles) to higher ledges a la Sonic 4: Episode 2. It can even support other mods! Its widescreen features and 60FPS gameplay are just the cherry on the cake. Sonic 3 fans won’t need any other version of the game after this one.
2 Sonic Robo Blast 2
Most of the best Sonic fangames have been built on top of another Sonic game. So, how about one built on top of Doom? Created by Sonic Team Junior, it uses the Doom Legacy version of the classic shooter to produce a pseudo-3D platformer. Players can pick Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles, and leap through 25 levels across 8 zones, complete with all the classic power-ups and abilities. Only now, the player can move up, down, and all around the levels instead of just left-to-right.
There’s a host of different multiplayer modes, either locally or online. Players can help each other out in co-op or beat each other up in Match or Team Match. There’s even a Capture the Flag mode! Like Sonic 3: AIR, it supports its own mods as well, like replacing the sprites with 3D models, throwing in new levels, or turning the game into a kart racer among others.
1 The Unleashed Project
Today, every level in Sonic Unleashed plays smooth as silk thanks to backwards compatibility on the XBox One and X/S. But on its original release in 2008, those later levels would chug on the 360, and even more so on the PS3. Especially during the daytime Jungle Joyride stage with its high-def details and water physics. If only there was a way for people without Microsoft's consoles to play Unleashed at a stable frame rate with better controls and without that silly Werehog business.
Enter Team Unleashed’s classic level pack mod. Stick their Unleashed Project mod onto a PC version of Sonic Generations, and players can play through all of Unleashed’s main Daytime stages. It comes complete with its own hub world, decorative features, and Generations’ tighter gameplay. The hardware requirements are pretty beefy, though given this mod came out in 2013, players with modern machines should be able to have fun with no fuss.