Sonic World
is a rather ambitious Fan Game based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. It's halfway between a Video Game Remake of the Adventure games with Heroes thrown in and halfway to being a Game Maker, with a dash every other aspect of the franchise thrown in for good measure.
Sonic World sought to refine the gameplay of what Sega calls "the Dreamcast era", with its gameplay being heavily based on the adventure style games. There's no set narrative; instead, the game is a collection of levels, either directly lifted from the official games or reimagined versions of them, with several completely original levels amongst them all as well.
Players can either choose to go in with a single character or with up to two other partner characters that could be switched between at will, ala Heroes. The cast of characters is also quite extensive; while the main game roster consists of strictly characters from the main series, World's mod support allows for the insertion of characters from practically every continuity from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) to Sonic Boom and even well beyond. For those worried about Gameplay Roulette don't be; all these characters play relatively the same; no fishing mini-games here.
In short; Sonic World is a massive sandbox people could use to make whatever they like, using the Dreamcast era gameplay.
In October 2018, the website was unfortunately shut down and the development team announced that the development had stopped, due to rumors of Ozcrash, the leader, committing illegal acts, which are alleged to be related to rape. Though eventually the site was restored, and the game may once more be downloaded in all its versions up to Release 9.
The remaining team members are currently working on one final release for Sonic World titled Sonic World DX, seeking to address the game's more glaring issues to the best of their ability. The first full release of that was made available on September 1, 2022. The team will afterwards focus on a Spiritual Successor in the form of Sonic Omniverse.
Not to be confused with the overworld in Sonic Jam.
Sonic World provides examples of:
- Fan Remake: In a sense; while it doesn't contain any narrative, the game seeks to refine the gameplay of the Dreamcast era into a more solid experience. To top it off, the game has levels from nearly every Sonic game to choose from as well.
- Game Mod: A rather extensive list to choose from. Thanks to the ease of access, making a mod for Worlds is relatively easy, to the point some would refer to this game as a Game Maker in its own right.
- Green Hill Zone: The game has its own version of the OG, as well as some of its lookalikes.
- Joke Character: The President from Sonic Adventure 2 and the G.U.N. Commander from Shadow the Hedgehog are included in the roster of playable characters. Since they're no less effective at quickly traversing levels as other characters, however, it becomes as ridiculous to watch in action as it sounds.
- Level Ate: One of the game's original stages, Chocolate Pit, is a landfill littered with giant candy bars.
- Massively Multiplayer Crossover: Characters from practically every single Sonic continuity are in here. With mod support, you can even add the likes of Mario to the game.
- Skyscraper City: Tokyo Street, an original Treasure Hunting stage.
- Super Mode:
- Not only does everyone's canon super modes show up in the game, every single character has their own now, even if they don't in canon (though only Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Silver, and Blaze receive visible model changes as established by the canon).
- Release 9 takes this above and beyond by giving everyone Hyper Forms as shown in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
