Trivia / Sonic X-treme

• B-Team Sequel: The game was developed by the western based Sega Technical Institute and was made with no involvement by Sonic Team at all, who were burned out on the series after making the first four Genesis games, and were wrapped up working on the games Ristar, NiGHTS into Dreams… and Burning Rangers anyway. After X-Treme went through a disastrous production that ended with both its cancellation and the dissolution of the Sega Technical Institute, Sega used NiGHTS and an upgraded port of the Travellers Tales spinoff game Sonic 3D Blast to fill in as the Killer App for the Saturn while Sonic Team were forced to take the reigns back on the series, beginning work on a prototype 3D engine (later used for the Sonic World hub of Sonic Jam) that would end up becoming the basis for Sonic's real 3D debut, Sonic Adventure.
• Creator Killer:
  • The game's infamous Troubled Production and cancellation, on top of corporate restructuring, is ultimately what led to the demise of Sega Technical Institute.
  • In this case, almost a literal sense. Chris Senn and Christina Coffin, the game's lead programmers, contracted pneumonia from overworking to try and get the game finished in time, and were told that they had six months to live, forcing them to drop out of the project. However, they survived and continues to work on video games.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Many people who worked on the project often got sick and nauseous working on the game, even resorting to living in the office space just to get work done.
  • Most notably, (as mentioned above) Christina Coffin, the game's lead programmer, contracted pneumonia from overworking to try and get the game finished. She even resorted to cancelling her lease and moving her belongings in the office space.
• He Also Did:
  • Lead programmer Ofer Alon would later found Pixologic, the developer of the digital sculpting software ZBrush.
  • Chris Senn would get another chance at a Western developed Sonic game. That game would be Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, the failure of which led him to leave the video game industry altogether.
• Hostility on the Set: Had a few examples of this:
  • Due to internal politics heavily affecting the game especially between the two teams due to how the management was structured. As mentioned by game producer Mike Walles:
    Mike Walles: We had artists doing art for levels that hadn’t even been concepted out, we had programmers waiting and waiting and waiting until every minute detail had been concepted out, and we had designers doing whatever the hell they wanted. It was a mess and because of the internal politics (The art director had trained his art team to hate the designers and programers). It was difficult to get any work done.
  • One of the animators would constantly complain about working too hard and verbally harassing the other employees. The final straw was when he walked out in the middle of a meeting leading to his firing the next day. He was described by producer Mike Walles as "being an ass".
  • A few stories by dev team members singled out Yuji Naka as being difficult to work with, stating that he was not supportive of the development of the game, feeling that Sonic Team should be the only developers of Sonic games. In one of the more notable incidents, the development team tried using the engine for NiGHTS into Dreams…, since it was one of the more well-put-together 3D for the Saturn and would have eased the development process considerably, but when Naka discovered this, he not only demanded that they ceased their use of it, he outright threatened to leave Sega if his demand was not met.
• The Merch: Despite the game ultimately getting cancelled, it did still have a fair amount of merchandise centred around it, including a set of glow-in-the-dark stickers, an AM/FM radio with a built-in speaker, a set of walkie-talkies, a T-shirt, a book with an In Name Only title published by Troll Books^note The plot of the book involves Sonic entering a sports competition hosted by Dr. Robotnik to rescue Bunnie Rabbot, and the Blue Bunny Sonic ice cream had an X-Treme edition wrapper for a while.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Over the years, there has been much speculation about the extent of the game's completion before its cancellation. Many believe that a substantial portion had been finished, while others argue that it was nearly complete, requiring only bug fixes. There is a lingering hope among some that the game's near-final build will one day be leaked on the internet. However, after examining the development history and interviews with the development team, it becomes apparent that the game itself barely existed beyond a few simple single-screen maps created for engine testing.
• Recycled Premise: Many of the early story ideas were similar or later used for other Sonic games, for example:
  • Sonic Mars = Sonic Frontiers: Sonic has to save his friends from being trapped in a virtual world.
  • Sonic Saturn = Sonic Adventure: and Sonic Lost World The master emerald being destroyed releasing six powerful beings that wants to destroy the world.
  • Sonic Boom/Sonic Doom = Sonic and the Secret Rings: Sonic gets cursed/infected with something that's going to kill him slowly and has to find a cure in a limited amount of time. A similar plot happens in the Sonic IDW Comics Metal Virus Ark.
  • Sonic X-Treme = Sonic Colors: Sonic has to travel from planet to planet to save captured and enslaved aliens.
• Troubled Production: And how! See what happened and why here.
• Vaporware: The game had a serious case of Troubled Production before being cancelled. Fans gradually uncovered its story and prototypes as the years passed.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
• Working Title: There were many working titles for the game, such as Sonic 32X, Sonic Mars, Sonic Saturn, Sonic Twisted, Sonic Boom (not to be confused with the Sonic subseries set in an alternate continuity made in The New '10s), Sonic Doom, and Sonic PC (possibly for the PC port). Other title ideas considered were Sonic Bluestreak, Sonic Ringworlds, and Super Sonic.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: According to Sonic Retro, Chris Senn stated that the "Rings of Order" story was hastily thrown together for the specific purpose of the Red Shoe Diaries featured in Game Players Magazine, the "final" story having yet to be solidified.

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