The VR market sprang to life last year with the launch of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets. Since then we’ve seen many game publishers take their biggest and best franchises and try to fit them into this new gaming paradigm. Some have worked, some have not, but everyone is at least looking at what can be done with VR. This is also true of Sega as we just got our first look at a Sonic the Hedgehog VR prototype that seems like it will never actually be brought to life.
Coming from Big Sky Studio, the prototype features Sonic guiding players through a series of puzzle game levels. With just a 17 second video and a short description to go off of, it’s tough to say exactly what this game would have looked like, had Sega proceeded with development.
The studio explains “Big Sky developed a proof of concept for Sega to help them bring their icon Sonic the Hedgehog to the world of Virtual Reality. In this puzzle game experience Sonic escorts our user along an adventure that takes him across land sea under volcanos and above the clouds thats true to Sonic form.”
From just the short video, it seems like Sonic the Hedgehog VR would have allowed players to move around and explore freely. This would have required some controller input, and seems to not rely on room-scale functionality which debuted with the Vive and was later added to Oculus Rift.
Puzzles are an odd choice for a Sonic the Hedgehog VR game, with the series more known for its fast paced platforming action. It’s branched out before though, so it’s not totally out of left field. Still, a more action oriented experience would have likely been a better choice for Sonic’s first VR foray. We’ll see if Sega went in another direction or if they cancelled it altogether if they ever announce anything official.
