Sonic Origins

Sonic Origins

Developers
	SEGA
Original (Sonic 1/CD/2/3 & Knuckles)	Sonic Team
Original (Sonic 2/3 & Knuckles)	Sega Technical Institute
Remaster (Sonic 1/CD/2)	Christian Whitehead
Remaster (Sonic 1/2/3 & Knuckles	Headcannon
Publishers
	SEGA
Engines
Menus	Hedgehog Engine 2
Games	Retro Engine
Release dates
Windows	June 23, 2022
Reception
Metacritic	73
OpenCritic	77
IGDB	75
Taxonomy
Monetization	DLC, One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Scrolling, Side view
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Platform
Art styles	Cartoon, Pixel art
Series	Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic Origins is a singleplayer and multiplayer scrolling and side view platform game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Epic Games Store		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Humble Store		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Steam		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.

All versions require Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM.

Version Differences

Digital Deluxe Edition: contains the base game as well as all DLCs including the Start Dash Pack.

Monetization

Type	Notes
DLC	Various cosmetic features, additional missions, and remastered music are available for purchase.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Start Dash Pack	Pre-order exclusive. Comes with 100 coins, an exclusive Mega Drive pillarbox background for Classic Mode, and Mirror Mode unlocked from the very start. Mirror Mode can be unlocked in the base game by beating each game or Story Mode.
Premium Fun Pack	Exclusive Hard Missions, pillarbox backgrounds, character animations in menus and Music Player, and controllable camera in 3D island menus. Included with "Digital Deluxe Edition".
Classic Music Pack	Bonus remastered music tracks from Genesis/Mega Drive spinoffs Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3D Blast and Knuckles' Chaotix. Included with "Digital Deluxe Edition".

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
No microtransactions	Sonic Origins has no microtransactions.

Essential improvements

Mod Managers

HedgeModManager

Mod manager for all Hedgehog Engine titles, including Sonic Origins. Required for all non-exe mods.

Also includes codes for limited lives in Anniversary and Mirror Modes, as well as turning off the autosave icon.

Graphics

Origins Blur Fix

Fixes the blur in vanilla Sonic Origins by injecting custom shaders from Sonic Mania as well as a nearest-neighboring shader.

Minimal-to-no performance impact.

Audio

Sonic 1 HQ OST

Replaces the default, low-quality music in Sonic 1 with a variety of different soundtracks

Includes a high quality recording from a real SEGA Genesis, the PAL SEGA Mega Drive soundtrack, the SEGA Master System soundtrack, Masato Nakamura's original demos, an early prototype soundtrack, the Dreamcast Smash Pack soundtrack, the J2ME mobile port MIDI soundtrack as played through the SC-55; SC-88; SC-88pro; SC-8820; Windows; the FatBoy MIDI soundfont; and AVS, the Game Boy Advance port soundtrack, a remastered version of said GBA soundtrack, the Sonic Classic Collection Nintendo DS soundtrack, the AtGames version soundtrack, and the remastered 2013 mobile soundtrack from Christian Whitehead. The soundtrack can be chosen from one of the 18 options.

Select soundtracks in Hi-Res Audio 96 kHz.

Config version which has all soundtracks in one package cannot be automatically updated through HedgeModManager.

Sonic CD HQ OST

Replaces the default, low-quality music in Sonic CD with a variety of different soundtracks

Includes the original SEGA CD OST, the 2011 mobile OST from Christian Whitehead, a remastered version of said 2011 mobile OST, and a hybrid soundtrack from the Sonic CD Restored mod in either Arrange (Enhanced) and Unified (Purist) variants. The soundtrack can be chosen from one of the 5 options (with the former 3 options having Japanese and American variants selectable in-game).

Config version which has all soundtracks in one package cannot be automatically updated through HedgeModManager.

Sonic 2 HQ OST

Replaces the default, low-quality music in Sonic 2 with a variety of different soundtracks

Includes a high quality recording from a real SEGA Genesis, the SEGA Master System soundtrack, the SEGA Game Gear soundtrack, Masato Nakamura's original demos, a speed-corrected version of said original demos from Masato Nakamura, an early prototype soundtrack discovered by Simon Wai, the J2ME mobile port MIDI soundtrack as played through the SC-55; SC-88; SC-88pro; SC-8820; Windows; the FatBoy MIDI soundfont; and AVS, the Sonic Classic Collection Nintendo DS soundtrack, the AtGames version soundtrack, and the remastered 2013 mobile soundtrack from Christian Whitehead. The soundtrack can be chosen from one of the 16 options.

Select soundtracks in Hi-Res Audio 96 kHz.

Config version which has all soundtracks in one package cannot be automatically updated through HedgeModManager.

Sonic 3&K HQ OST

Replaces the default, low-quality music in Sonic 3&K with a variety of different soundtracks

Includes a high quality recording from a real SEGA Genesis, an early prototype soundtrack, the General MIDI soundtrack of the Sonic & Knuckles Collection PC port as played back through General MIDI; the FatBoy MIDI soundfont; AVS; the SC-88pro; the SC-88VL; and the Sound Blaster AWE32, the FM Synthesizer soundtrack of Sonic & Knuckles Collection PC port as played back through FM Synthesizer; the FatBoy MIDI soundfont; AVS; Nuked OPL3; and OPL3, the Sonic Classic Collection Nintendo DS soundtrack, the AtGames version soundtrack, and the Sonic 3 A.I.R. remastered soundtrack. The soundtracks have Sonic 3 and Sonic 3&K variants, while the Sonic 3 A.I.R. soundtracks also have prototype variants of Sonic 3 and Sonic 3&K, with an additional Deluxe variant blending together the different soundtracks into one. The soundtrack can be chosen from one of the 34 options.

Select soundtracks in Hi-Res Audio 96 kHz.

Optionally restores the original Michael Jackson songs from the SEGA Genesis release.

Config version which has all soundtracks in one package cannot be automatically updated through HedgeModManager.

Classic Music Pack HQ OST

Replaces the default, low-quality music in the Classic Music Pack DLC with a variety of different soundtracks

Includes high quality recording of the Sonic Spinball and Sonic 3D Blast soundtracks from a real SEGA Genesis and a high quality recording of the Knuckles' Chaotix soundtrack from a real SEGA 32X; alongside the alternate SEGA Saturn soundtrack of Sonic 3D Blast. The Sonic 3D Blast soundtrack can be chosen from one of the 2 options, giving a total of 4 soundtracks.

All soundtracks in Hi-Res Audio 96 kHz.

Cannot be updated automatically through HedgeModManager like the other standalone versions.

Requires owning a legitimate copy of the Classic Music Pack DLC.

The HQ OST Compilation

An all-in-one compilation of the five HQ OST mods above in one package.

18 soundtrack options in Sonic 1, 5 soundtrack options in Sonic CD (with 3 soundtracks having different Japanese and American variants selectable in-game), 16 soundtrack options in Sonic 2, 34 soundtrack options in Sonic 3&K and 2 options in the Classic Music Pack.

80 separate soundtracks in one mod package.

Select soundtracks in Hi-Res Audio 96 kHz.

Cannot be updated automatically through HedgeModManager like the standalone versions.

The complete package is 11 GB in size, even larger than the vanilla Sonic Origins game.

Listening to the upgraded Classic Music Pack soundtrack requires owning a legitimate copy of the Classic Music Pack DLC.

Original Remaster SFX Pack

Restores all the sound effects from the 2013/2011 mobile versions of Sonic 1, 2, and CD.

Holds an option to change only noticeably different SFX in Sonic CD.

Does not restore the vocal lines from Sonic and Amy.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Epic Games Launcher
Steam	%APPDATA%\Sega\SonicOrigins\steam\<user-id>\option\data.dat %APPDATA%\Sega\SonicOrigins\steam\x64\screen_setting.xml
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1794960/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Epic Games Launcher	%APPDATA%\Sega\SonicOrigins\epic\<user-id>\game\data.dat
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1794960/pfx/

Steam %APPDATA%\Sega\SonicOrigins\steam\<user-id>\game\data.dat }}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Epic Games Launcher
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics settings

Letterbox settings

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Each game's "Classic Mode" is pillarboxed to a 4:3 aspect ratio, with an optional border.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen		Aspect ratios wider than 16:9 are pillarboxed to a 16:9 aspect ratio. Works on the mobile versions of Sonic 1, 2 and CD. There should be a workaround.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Likely bilinear filtering.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS		Main menu, Sonic 1 and 2 run at ~59 fps due to an imprecise frame rate limiter; Sonic CD and 3 & Knuckles are capped at ~63 FPS. See Issues fixed. Gameplay is locked to the frame rate and refresh rate. See Frame rate (FPS).
120+ FPS		Capped at 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)

Frame rate (FPS)

The frame rate is partially locked to the refresh rate of the monitor, regardless of V-Sync. A refresh rate of 40 or below will cap the frame rate at 40 FPS, while a refresh rate of 60 or above will cap the frame rate at 60 FPS. A refresh rate between 40 and 60 will cap the frame rate to that refresh rate (so 50 Hz locks the game to 50 FPS).

The gameplay is synced to the frame rate, and targets 60 FPS to deliver a full speed (100%) experience. This means that 40 FPS (40 Hz or below) will run the game at 66.67% speed (a 1/3 slowdown) and 50 FPS (50 Hz) at 83% speed (a 1/6 slowdown).

Configure the monitor to run at 60 Hz or higher to play the game at full speed

Resolution scaling

Similar to other games using Retro Engine, a slight smoothing effect is applied to all games when they are upscaled to a resolution that is not an exact multiplier of the base resolution, irrespective of the anti-aliasing option. This is an intentional decision to prevent pixel "shimmering" or "wobbling" compared to a nearest-neighbor scaled image while providing a sharper pixel image quality than regular linear filtering methods.

However, the output is ultimately still not as sharp as Sonic Mania's implementation, and unlike other Retro Engine games there is no in-game or external configuration option to disable this altogether if so desired.

Use custom shader injection
Includes options to disable filtering, CRT filters, and filters ported directly from Sonic Mania.

Input

Keyboard and mouse bindings

Gamepad settings (Xbox One layout)

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus		Partial support.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Button prompts		The "Button Icon" setting allows manually selecting between Xbox Wireless, Xbox 360, DualShock 4, DualSense, or Nintendo Switch controller prompts. It'll also detect what controller is connected and use those button icons by default upon boot-up.
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M		Keyboard and button prompts change from one another when inputting from separate controllers in menus.

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  Gamepad settings (Xbox 360 layout)

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  Gamepad settings (DualShock 4 layout)

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  Gamepad settings (DualSense layout)

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  Gamepad settings (Nintendo Switch layout)

Audio

Sound settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Separate sliders for Sound Effects and Music.
Surround sound		Stereo only.
Subtitles		There is no voice acting in any of the games. Sonic CD's vocal songs in the NA and EU/JP versions are not subtitled.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Text language settings

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				The theme songs for Sonic CD in the NA and EU/JP versions are sung in English. [1]
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play		2	Co-op, Versus Only available in Sonic 2 and 3 & Knuckles.
LAN play
Online play		Leaderboards only.

Issues fixed

Refresh rate/frame rate mismatch

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2 run at frame rates somewhat beneath 60 FPS; this mismatch induces severe, consistent stuttering in both games when played without adaptive sync. Sonic CD and 3 & Knuckles are capped at ~63 FPS.

Use Special K's "Sleepless Render Thread" option and cap frame rate to 60 FPS
Provides better frame pacing compared to game and fixes potential frame rate problems.

Game won't launch if you have a non-ASCII character in your Windows profile

Enable Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support.
Go to Control Panel. Click on "Change date, time, or number formats". Switch to the "Administrative" tab. Click on "Change system locale...". Check "Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support". Press OK and allow Windows to restart your system.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Criware
Cutscenes	Criware

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5-2400 3.1 GHz AMD FX-8350 4.2 GHz	Intel Core i5-4570 3.2 GHz AMD Ryzen 3 1300X 3.4 GHz
System memory (RAM)	6 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 AMD Radeon HD 7870 2 GB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 AMD Radeon R9 280 2 GB (Nvidia), 3 GB (AMD) of VRAM

A 64-bit operating system is required.