The development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 continues to be one of the most well documented stories in gaming history. The Video Game History Foundation have now preserved artwork from 2 ex-SEGA Technical Institute artists and discover a whole host of content from the game’s early development that we’ve never seen before. See below for a full list of the discoveries that they’ve made:

– Dark Empire was a cancelled STI Mega Drive game that was shelved due to Sonic 2 getting green-lit
– Maps of the concept stage Genocide/Cyber City by Tom Payne have been scanned that give us a better understanding of what this stage might have looked like
– A working demo of Genocide/Cyber City has been produced with Hez of Sonic the Hedgehog Classic fame, who has also been working on his own preservation of Wood/Secret Jungle Zone
– All of Tom Payne’s artwork has been made available to browse on Archive.org by clicking here
– The Sand Shower mock-up screen is actually animated and viewable on Brenda Cook’s VHS portfolio alongside a Wood/Secret Jungle Zone mock-up
– Brenda Cook’s VHS portfolio also reveals a completely unseen Winter-themed zone which is a palette swap of Sand Shower that now features snow and Christmas trees
– Brenda Cook’s VHS portfolio has been entirely preserved on YouTube and is available to watch by clicking here. It also contains artwork for a deleted Sonic Spinball stage

You can watch the entire video on all of these discoveries from The Video Game History Foundation via the embed below:

sonicyoda

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