Prototype Info
Prerelease Info
Unused Audio"Sand waterfalls are great! You can run on 'em and everything!"
Unused Object LayoutsSunset Heights and Park Avenue were one stage?
Unused TextUnused Graphics#
UI Graphics#
A placeholder picture for theater previews, featuring Sonic about to get smashed in the face by rubble from the game's reveal trailer. Found in ui_title_en.pac'.
Some sort of faded-paper graphic, similar in style to the VR demo splash screen mentioned below. Found in ui_weaponselect_en.pac.
An early version of the "new item" notification graphic along with some other seemingly UI-related stuff. Also found in ui_weaponselect_en.pac.
Early Sunset Heights Screenshot#
Several UI and HUD-related archives contain a screenshot depicting an early version of Sunset Heights with a bevy of differences:
- The lighting is much brighter than the final.
- Most particle effects are missing.
- Several of the buildings around the road are different.
- Most of the smaller background and foreground details present in the final are either positioned differently or entirely nonexistent.
- The bridge is undamaged and seems to be using a placeholder texture.
- The camera and object placement is identical to some of the early Sunset Heights layouts, although the presence of only Modern Sonic suggests this may be from after it and Park Avenue were split.
- All HUD elements are visible at once and all numbers are at 0, which suggests it was likely just a mockup at this point.
- The HUD is also semi-transparent, unlike the final, which is entirely opaque.
- The Burst Wisp icon is rendered at a different angle from the final.
Splash Screens#
Stored within vr_stage.pac is a leftover splash screen from a VR demo.
(Source: Zoney)
An unused splash screen with the game's ESRB rating, present in ui_title_esrb_e10.pac.
A "rating pending" ESRB splash screen, stored in ui_title_esrb_rp.pac.
Textures#
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A temporary texture with "stone" written on it, with the Japanese word for it (石) above. Stored within 'w5b01_obj.pac".
Final Judgement has a unique skybox that cannot be seen in normal gameplay due to the fact that the stage takes place entirely inside.
The T-Shirts for the Avatar have an unused bottom half of the texture, which appears to resemble a pair of white shorts. This texture goes unused, as it is not mapped onto the model.
An unused cubemap that was presumably used for testing. It is sourced from an HDRI that can be downloaded from the Pixar Renderman website.1 Stored in debug_common.pac.
An unused skybox texture for Metropolis, which can be found in w6a03_sky.pac. (Note that the for the sake of visibility on the site, the texture's exposure value was lowered by 10)
Unused Maps#
The game files contain leftover maps used for the game's cutscenes, many of which are pre-rendered in the same fashion as Sonic Colors' cutscenes, in addition to variants of these maps that appear to be unused entirely. They consist of:
- Eggman's base as seen in the beginning.
- Sunset Heights (though this is merely an edited-down version of the level geometry).
- The Resistance base (which is actually seen in an in-game cutscene at the end of the game, but uses a different model that includes the intended computer display seen in all other representations of the area).
- An unused version of Zavok's pre-fight scene map (which itself is cut down from Zavok's fight arena).
- Green Hill (which appears to be cut down from Guardian Rock's crab fight).
- Eggman Empire Fortress as seen in Classic Sonic's final scene.
- Sunset Heights as seen in the ending.
Most of these maps have collision, although it's never anything more than a flat plane or box.
Unused Abilities#
Sonic#
While the Wall Jump is only used by the Avatar in Imperial Tower, hacking Sonic into the stage reveals that he can actually use it as well, even though there are no places where he would normally be able to.
Likewise, Sonic can also use Shadow's unique Homing Attack chain if he is hacked into the Episode Shadow stages.
Classic Sonic#
Similar to Modern Sonic's Wall Jump, hacking Classic Sonic into Modern Sonic/Avatar levels reveals that he can use rails properly (even though they never appear in his levels) and rolls on them like he does in Sonic Generations. This is likely just a leftover from that game.
Unused Models#
boss_bigzavok_tes.model#
Stored within BossBigZavok.pac is an unused character model for Zavok. Interestingly, the textures are taken from Sonic Lost World, the model doesn't cast shadows, and the skeleton is different from the Zavok model stored in BossQueenBeeton.pac (which is used in the final game), suggesting that this is a leftover from said game.
There are some unused terrain models underneath part of Mortar Canyon which seem to serve no purpose. They have no collision, implying they were either misplaced or hidden on purpose.
Unused Animations#
Classic Sonic has some unused animations carried over from Sonic Generations and were unused there as well, implying that his model in this game was simply converted to the new formats rather than being rebuilt from scratch.
Also leftover from Sonic Generations are Goal Post animations for Dr. Robotnik/Classic Eggman. These are carried over from the missions where you are required to continually bounce a Goal Post through the air.
The Egg Pawns have an unused 'seek' animation. This was intended to play after the player leaves the enemy's search range.
Silver has an unused animation featuring him in a damaged pose similar to that of the VS Infinite intro cutscene. This would more than likely have been used at the end of Luminous Forest to sync in with the cutscene when Sonic appears.
Metal Sonic has several unused animations, likely leftover from an earlier version of the boss fight. (An unused boss object for an earlier fight exists, but is non-functional apart from a short quickstep sequence during its intro). Some of these are very similar to certain animations that Classic Metal Sonic does in Generations.
The Golems from Capital City have 2 unused animations for their hands, where they wave around, almost in a violent manner.
Next are some unused gameplay animations. Something to note is that most of these only work on an older version of the skeleton, used by the radio variants of the characters. However, as the Avatar has no radio model, their unused animations are broken.
Zavok has some animations that the player can't see normally, when the Queen Beeton flies high up before attacking.
(Source: The Duck Dealer)
The Queen Beeton itself has unused animations: qbe_qte_atk_end, qbe_qte_damage_right_small, qbe_qte_damage_left_small, and qbe_qte_attack_start.
(Source: The Duck Dealer)
Unused Objects/Enemy Behavior#
The Motobugs in have an unused "jumping" behavior: upon sighting an enemy, they will jump and attempt to land on top of the player.
The Egg Tanks in have two unused behaviors. The first (shown in this video), is an unused attribute where gravity affects the EggTank's bullets. The other, which isn't shown, is one that fills the players' boost gauge when destroying the fired projectiles in mid-air.
The Valkeens have several unused behaviors in the game (which makes sense, seeing as they are only used in one stage, most of the time being used as background elements). These are all very similar to how they behave in Lost World.
There is an unused object intended for Casino Forest that emulates the same function as the rolling thorn balls from Spring Yard Zone in Sonic 1.
There is an unused variant of the Rotation Blocks from Casino Forest and Chemical Plant which were intended for the Death Egg Stages (likely Classic Sonic's). They function identically to their counterparts.
There are unused settings in Zavok's boss fight. These include the ability to homing attack Zavok when he is charging at the player in phase 2, an unused Beeton type that charges at the player instantly rather than locking on and then charging, another unused beeton type that remains idle, an unused camera setting that does not seem to function anymore, a super ring object setting (normal rings are used instead), and a chain explosion that goes through the beetons if they are close together.
There is an unused parameter for phase 2 of the Final Boss has the option to spawn Valkeens alongside Egg Pawns. Normally, this is unused in-game. The video above shows it restored and in action. It isn't guaranteed that this is how the Valkeens would have behaved, but it is likely they would have behaved in a similar manner.
Phase 1 of the Final Boss has a missile launch attack that goes unused. The attack is set in the bosses' attack pattern, but it is skipped as the values for this attack are set to a negative number. By changing this, you can get it functioning in game.
Internal Project Name#
The game's internal project name is "Wars", according to the CPK archives that contain the game files, as well as the ACB/AWB files that contain the game's audio.
Revisional Differences#
November 7, 2017 Update (1.0.1)#
Released on launch day.
- Fixed issues relating to unsteady performance and game crashes.
- In the initial version of the game, players could not re-collect lost rings, unlike previous games. This was changed on launch day so players could re-collect rings.
November 23, 2017 Update (1.1.0)#
- Fixed stuttering gameplay/cutscene issues.
- Fixed crashes for some users with older or below min spec CPUs.
- Fixed light flickering issue during the Zavok boss battle (Stage 5).
- Various minor performance improvements.
- Fixed Rental Avatar issue where they were not shown from the correct areas of the leaderboard.
- Fixed Episode Shadow music issue.
- Fixed Shadow trail effect color issue.
- Fixed minor audio issues in front end.
- Improved anti-cheat for leaderboards.
- Fixed controller issue (fixes to deadzones and D-Pad mapping on controllers).
- Fixed Steam achievement stats issues.
December 13, 2017 Update (1.1.1)#
- Additional fixes to crashes experienced by users with older or below-minimum spec CPUs.
- Save file system now functions for individual Steam users when the system is shared by multiple Steam users.
1.2.0 Update#
This was quietly released in June 2025, only for the Nintendo Switch version. It improves compatibility when the game is played on the Nintendo Switch 2. Otherwise, all content in the game is identical to the previous version (including the version number on the title screen still reading 1.1.0).
Platform Differences#
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- The game's pre-rendered cutscenes are in 1080p on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, and in 720p on Switch.
- The resolution settings remain the same if played on a PS5 or Xbox Series X|S.
- The Xbox One version has an adaptive v-sync set up, which can result in minor screen-tearing.
- As a result of these graphical cut-backs, the Switch version's file size is 6.8GB, compared to the 17GB of the other versions.
- Playing in portable mode disables anti-aliasing and several post-processing effects (the ripple distortion when activating Modern Sonic's boost, heat distortion in Green Hill, light shafts, depth-of-field, etc.).
- Set data was also simplified in some stages, such as less Wisp capsules in Arsenal Pyramid and Luminous Forest.
- Some terrain meshes, like some buildings in Null Space, were redesigned.
- While still present in the files, point lights have been disabled in all stages due to a parameter in the scene data values for those being set to "false".
- Some textures were completely redesigned. Shown below is a grass texture from Lost Valley, just before the stage's 2D section.
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- All stages in the Eggman Empire Fortress area use an entirely different skybox model on Switch, with the sky being one singular texture instead of several (similar to the unused Metropolis skybox texture). Final Judgement's unique skybox is blanked out with a grey square as well.
- The Switch version displays the Simplygon logo at startup (a tool the developers used for reducing polygon counts on stage terrain) and in the credits. The other versions do not, but the logo can be found in their UI pac archives.
- Similar to the above, the PC version's staff roll added credits for Hardlight, the studio that ported the game to the platform. Like the Simplygon logo, the Hardlight logo can also be found in the UI pac archives in other versions.
- For whatever reason, in the Switch version, Infinite does not have purple cloud particles around his body whereas in every other version he does
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- The PC version has a couple of control issues where, first, it is unable to register full 360 degree movement, instead only the eight cardinal directions. Then, the d-pad cannot be used to control the characters like in the console versions.
- The Switch version has a control quirk where the character will go full speed even if the left stick is slightly pushed.