MEMORIES!!! Or maybe more like flashbacks!! I'm Craig Stitt, the third American artist mentinoed here. Seeing the grid layouts of Tom's brought back memories. I know I kept a lot of stuff as well, but somewhere a box of art must have gotten lost, or left behind, so I don't have much from my work on Sonic 2. Even more frustration is somewhere in a landfill in Redwood City is probably a couple boxes of 3.5" disks with all my SEGA art work on it. At least I was fortunate enought to have one of my two levels end up in the final game, Oil Ocean Zone. (although HPZ finally made it into the game, it only took a couple decades!!) Althought seeing all the long lost Sonic stuff was fun, the thing that got me excited was seeing Jester!!! I didn't work on the game, but it was a game that held a LOT of potential, was nearly completed, and yet almost nothing of it remains (at least that I can find).

I don't see this as "the true sonic 2 that we were robbed of" but more like... "it's gotta suck making all of this great art and that nobody got to see for so long". glad it's finally getting some light and some love. and to answer your tangent: I'd love to see a video deep diving into the old sonic 2 research scene!

The craziest part of this story is that the Sonic 2 team in America and the Sonic CD team in Japan apparently both came up with the idea for time traveling in their game independently of each other.

The fact that the 2013 Mobile reboot of Sonic 2 included Hidden Palace Zone (one of the cut stages) and added that as a secret stage in Mystic Cave Zone is actually insane

I briefly worked with Brenda at Neversoft way back in 1997! Glad to see she's still alive and well.

The fact we're finally seeing the original Sand Shower mockup, and it was _animated_ *_PLUS_* the Winter Zone mockup as well? I'm genuinely in tears. I'm so, so, so happy

Brenda's pixel art looks really good, it's a shame they didn't use any of her work. Great video. Thanks Frank and everyone over at the VGHF!

The original plot of sonic makes so much sense now. I always had trouble wrapping my head around this island having Emerald Hill Zone lead right into a chemical plant

I was told and heard from Tom Payne himself that Cyber City Zone's graphics were recycled from a cancelled game he was working on named B-Bomb, and those assets had been documented already, and that Metropolis Zone Act 3's level layout was taken from Cyber City when it was scrapped. Also going by the Time Travel doc, the name of the "Winter" Zone was Rock World, and it would've been Sand Shower in the past.

That spinball stage is INCREDIBLE, I'm so happy this was preserved. I can't wait to hear what Brenda has to say when you speak with her.

Actually seeing that sand shower concept art MOVE was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had, amazing work preserving this stuff, crazy to think this long after release we’re still learning new things about this game

I can't believe I finally saw Brenda's work after só many years. Thank you guys.

That's a shame that Brenda's work was cut. I remember playing a ripped version of Wood Zone online about 10 years ago and thought it looked great if definitely unfinished.

I never expected anyone would find actual footage of the Sand Shower or Winter Zone mock-ups! This is incredible!!!

It's sad that Brenda's artwork never made it into the final game, it looks great! I remember playing the Wood Zone and Hidden Palace prototypes on my PC back in the early 2000's. It's amazing to see that the desert zone artwork not only exists in higher quality, but that we can actually see it animated too. Good work Brenda!

Never thought we would actually see what Genocide/Cyber City looked like, same with the Winter Zone, this gives me so much hope that one day we will finally see what Dubious Depths/R2/Ridicule Route from Sonic CD looked like.

Wow. It is truly mind blowing to finally see Cyber City after all these years. After multiple ROM hacks had to basically make it up entirely from scratch, we finally know (roughly) how it was intended to look. Excellent work!

This video was absolutely wonderful and completely unexpected! It’s incredible how we are STILL making these Sonic 2 discoveries decades later.

This is incredible!

This is absolutely incredible, this is such a well informed, researched and produced video, seriously well done! That VHS tape of Desert Hill is just amazing!

After reading about that winter level art with the christmas trees so many times actually getting to see the real thing instead of a recreation is such a cool yet surreal experience, it's like a mystery suddenly getting demystified by randomly stumbling on a long lost artifact that explains it away in a pretty straight forward way. Also, I never knew than that much art of Cyber City had survived, I always assumed that all that existed of it was a name and a rough level layout. But now we actually have a level recreation and plenty of context about what it was meant to be. It's so cool to finally have more tangible information about Sonic 2's lost zones after three decades of wondering and speculation. I kinda wish that someone would take these discarded concepts and make a game inspired by them, I feel like it still has potential.

30+ years later and we're still getting new discoveries. This is wonderful.

I have been searching for a lot of info of these lost zones. Thank you for this. Edit: YES WE FINALLY HAVE WHAT WINTER ZONE WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. Sorry for speaking in caps but I am just so glad. This has made my day. Thank you.

Frank is seriously the man. I loved getting to hear him speak at a con earlier this year. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but we are still in the very early days of a medium that will never go away. Hundreds of years from now the VGHF’s work is going to be viewed with extreme reverence as this historic treasure trove of documented and preserved primary sources, and we should all be thankful we have someone like Frank putting in the legwork.

The new concept art and the Cyber City recreation is absolutely mind blowing. Thank you so much for this.

Domesday duplicator is an absolute game changer. So many cool discoveries in the last year in incredible quality. Thanks as always for the excellent work. See you at PRGE!

That was amazing stuff, much better than I'd imagined! I hope all the people that worked on this game, like Brenda, feel the amount of love we have for them and their work. And I like Frank, too, first time I had seen him lol. Best Regards.

I'll be honest. . . This is somewhat what my headcanon was as a kid, except without time travel. Having read the Sonic comics and watched the cartoons I knew that there was that dichotomy between environmentalism and production (it was the 90s) The only thing that didn't really click was hilltop. It just seemed like that was somewhere that had been left alone by robotnik that never really developed.

i was not expecting Sonic 2 to have even more stuff to be found! this is really impressive! i was thinking we knew basically 90% of how the game was going to be and how some unused levels were.

My mind is completely blown finding out that Sonic 2 would have had a coherent time travel story and what we got was a fun, albeit cobbled together mish-mash of levels that made it through the chopping block. THIS is why video game preservation is so important!

Oh my god this makes me SO happy. As a kid when i first learned about the lost levels of Sonic 2, it became an obsession. The fact that to this day we are still finding more details on what this game could've been is astounding.

I CANNOT wait for sonic 2: the complete adventure

Treasure's "Alien Soldier" was apparently meant to be even larger and more epic than the final product. With tons of bosses and plot elements being scrapped. This might be wishful thinking, but I would love it if you people could get in touch with Treasure and do a piece on this.

This was amazing. To see the original Dust Hill Zone as we have all seen it, realizing it was never a moving image but a still, concept art. It explains so much of Sonic's placement, and why it was easy for them to take that picture as it was a still image, it wouldn't be blurry to print for magazines. Every year we learn more and more, like the Sonic 3 music, Luigi in Mario 64, and now stuff like this. It's wonderful.

Holy shit, seeing the Dust Hill screenshot animated after all this time is crazy! I never expected that the mockup had animation

I genuinely love the original idea you discussed for sonic 2 would love to see someone attempt a recreation of that story

Even after 31 years Sonic 2 has still new unreleased content and a lot of questions too. I always wondered why the Levels were so chaotic listed at the end product, it just didn't make any sense after Emerald Zone going to Chemical Plant Zone then back to nature at Aquatic Ruin Zone and back again to the bright lights of Casino Night Zone back again to the nature with Hill Top Zone. Now it makes sense with the time traveling and switching from Nature into Big Cities as a dystopia. Very interesting the animations of the Dust Hill Zone with the cactus, also never before seen Background layers and art works for Genocide City Zone.

Sonic 2's development history is super interesting to me, and it's always nice to see new discoveries on things that didn't make it into the final game. Major props to everyone involved here!

Such incredible history being unearthed here! Cyber City really was gonna be more of an evolution to Scrap Brain, huh... and I kinda remember there being mention of a winter level somewhere eons ago for Sonic 2, but never thought it was gonna be paralleling to Dust Hill's design - speaking which, I'm blown away of getting to see it in motion. Bless Brenda, Tom and you guys for bringing all of this for us, it's great to see these names gain more publicity for their memorable work long shrouded in elusion. Also I dearly hope we'll see more simulations on the rest of lost levels in the future. Honestly with seeing all these lost level arts and recreations next to the time travel progression of levels, has me want to see fan recreation that explores this original vision for Sonic 2 fully realized.

It's alright to dream about the Sonic game that we were denied, but in truth if they would have included everything, it would have felt bloated, went on for too long and with such the short development time, have far more bugs in it than the final game had. Quality over Quantity.

I've always been fascinated by Cyber City, because just the original name is so evocative of what it could be. I used to played the Simon Wai prototype, and wondered what could be there... I got so excited when you revealed you had the full map, and could recreate the tile set. It was like...seeing a childhood wonder come to life. I hope you do more of these, because this is fantastic. Hopefully you'll be able to identify where Track 10 goes? And as a pixel artist myself... I'm going to try to recreate Brenda's Christmas trees.

Thanks for this. Knowing the over arching plan for sonic 2, the levels make so much more sense now. It's amazing how good Sonic 2 is given how cut back it was. I'm sad they couldn't get everything out to their complete vision. Great work!

Seeing the graph paper method of how the levels were layed out is so cool and really demystifies how they were able to achieve such amazing level design.

I'm salivating over the prospect of someone really putting in the work and faithfully recreating these levels in a complete Sonic 2 rom with the original time travel element still in tact. The game makes so much more sense given that it was supposed to be time travel. I always thought it was weird to have Hilltop Zone in the middle of the game (since it seemed like an alternate Emerald Hill Zone).

seeing Sand Shower Zone (or like people called Dust Hill Zone) animated and the winter level too made me so happy and nostalgic, i played so many rom hacks over 10 years ago that recreated these levels, i remember one called Sonic 2 Delta that had "dust hill" and then "winter hill" which was just dust hill with snow like colors, and then there was the fan game Sonic Before the Sequel reimagining the cut levels in a new way and putting "dust hill" and "winter hill" as one level transitioning from desert to winter

Collision Chaos Radio's video on the Sonic 2 timeline and its musical remnants was one of the best pieces of independent research I'd seen for Sonic 2 in ages, and it's so cool that it's how you all ended up talking to Brenda Cook! Fantastic work by all.

I've never been super into the sonic 2 beta scene so its mind blowing to see that desert mock up was legit this whole time.

Fantastic content! When you think there's nothing else to learn about the classic games a dedicated team comes along and uncovers stuff like this! Incredible effort by everyone involved and I'm sure all are grateful for preserving the content in the highest possible quality 😁

Fantastic lifechanging work! So amazing to see Brenda's work after all these decades! I wish I could send this and everything else we know now back to the 90s/00s to help kids like me understand how game development worked, but at the same time, the mystery and imagination is what helped me become a game developer now lol Anyway, I hope you all continue to make more videos! This was a lovely treat and a great way to spread awareness about the foundation for people who don't like to read lol

It's pretty weird as for the Sonic 2/Sonic CD overlap. That desert level almost made it into Sonic CD (you can kinda see it in the background of Wacky Workbench Past, and you can see a Desert level on the world map in the DA Garden, and it actually changes in all the time zones). Then there's Sonic Boom (japanese version of the opening song for Sonic CD), reappearing as the BGM for Green Hills Zone in the 8-bit version of Sonic 2.

My interest in video game history many years ago was spurred on by AVGN and more so, Sonic 2. It's a beloved game from my childhood and like most, the hidden palace zone/unused music track in the sound test captured my imagination and curiosity. There's just something about Sonic 2 that grabs people's interest in these sort of things. Seeing all this new information brings me a ton of great joy. Nice work!!

Bruh, you have no idea how wide my smile was through some of these sections. I was a small kid when the internet started getting popular, and my favorite past time was reading articles about Sonic 2 cut content, playing the betas in emulators, etc. We had so little info at the time, some stuff was just hear-say spread around by magazines and old sites. So seeing "Winter Zone" and Cyber City realized after all these years like this is so cathartic. Thank you so much for all your work on the VGHF.

actually surprised that the winter zone was a real thing, I always thought it was just some fanmade stuff. also seeing the original sand shower zone image animated is cool

As a member of Area 51 and SWS2B back in the day I was not expecting new Sonic 2 Beta discoveries in 2023. I used to have dreams of discovering a cart with playable Dust Hill.

Simply stunning getting to see history unfold like this before our eyes, bringing life to what was once thought as merely a dream. While I will always cherish the Sonic 2 we did ultimately get, thank you for giving us another peek behind the curtain and a chance to see the "what could have been" of Sonic's 2nd adventure

Seeing genocide city being recreated to playability is incredible

Please create raw images of the diskettes! There could still be development-related data on them, that could be recovered.

I'm 15 yo right now, which really doesn't sound that old, but i remember seeing videos about lost sonic media and seeing a lot of sonic 2 stuff, and i could just wonder what that stuff looked like, i was 10. 5 years later, i'm finally seeing almost everything i imagined in 5th grade. I'm so glad i'm alive to see history unfold in front of my very eyes.

I would just like to emphasize that Hill Top is the only fully realized Ancient stage that didn't get cut. Hill Top. Also, if you listen closely, you'll notice the zone music is actually a remix of Emerald Hill's.

Wow they still kept those files! I mean that's always been the practice for portfolios but that's like, many many years ago and I'm really glad they still have those precious files with them. And same here, I know I'm the kind of person that sucks alot in history, but I never expected myself to be so attracted to these Lost and Unused Stuff to games I love. Maybe it also has something to do with appreciating fellow Game Dev Assets, but not as a Game Dev but also a Gamer, it's just amazing to see these information that's otherwise forgotten or just not given attention.

This is incredible. As a lifelong fan of Sonic, and one that has always been fascinated by His World (HAH), seeing snippets of what could've been is so cool.

Christmas came early, I want to spend it in Winter Zone! Even ignoring the new content there are details I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else! Super grateful for everyone who made this possible, from the developers to the VGHF staff.

I loved every second of this video! It was also awesome to finally see more concepts that never made it into the final game. My favorite part was seeing Cook's portfolio which showed off how the cut zones would've visually looked like, but also functioned. I always wanted to see more of these cut zones and I'm truly happy to see some questions I've had over the years finally be resolved!

This is actually crazy, this work will be talked about for a long time

Imagine Sky Chase Zone's theme song playing over that Winter Zone. It had these Christmas-like sounds. Even in Masa's Demo version.

Given the alarm-sounding from creators like Stephanie Sterling and HBomberguy about the risk of losing the historical context of video games and their creators, I'm really happy to find a foundation like this exists.

Hidden Palace Zone was added back in the mobile release of Sonic 2, it replaces the death pit in Mystic Cave Zone. That’s so neat. Imagine if the same thing happened with these levels.

My young teenage self is just beaming right now learning of the history that could have been, and to finally pull back the curtain on the magic that created the old masterpiece. It answered a lot of questions, but also generated a lot of new ones. What a tremendous find! Thank you. ❤

Wow, can't believe the dedication to bring back an scrapped stage. It actually looks amazing!

When I was a kid, I heard the music track in the options that was never used in any actual level. I always knew these levels existed but never thought I would get to see them. Thank you so, so much for this. It was like stumbling into a magical secret stage that my inner child never stopped believing existed.

this is amazing, getting a peak into the levels that had seemed to be lost to time, thank you for giving everyone the opportunity to see all this.

Absolutely amazing effort! Thank you for bringing all this lost work to light. It's awesome finally being able to see some of these legendary lost stage designs and artwork.

Love the more edited and commentated videos. A suggestion I have though due to how youtube works these days, is it may be greatly beneficial to upload videos such as these and other videos about the organization itself here on this channel, and have all of the archival footage of behind the scenes, portfolios, commercials etc. on a second channel called the “Video Game History Foundation Video Archive” or some such. I love what you guys do and have been a supporter for years!

OK, wow. Seeing the original map concept helps explain a lot of the theming of the levels we got in the final game and makes them seem a lot less random!

11:15 I really liked when "how sonic 2 was made" synced up with the chemical plant zone music

This is so awesome! Also, it’s really nice that Dust Hill would later become Desert Dazzle, which after also being unused would become Mirage Saloon.

always had a fixation with cyber city and i'm so glad it has been rescontructrd, even if partially

It's been so long since we were curiously guessing details of these levels in the 90s and 2000s. Wow, so amazing seeing the real winter zone!

Nice video. Very interesting. Sonic 2's development is fascinating.

Hands down this is the best recent sonic beta uncovering in a while ! my jaw dropped watching this.. you have some EXCLUSIVE videos and content there

Thank you Mr. Cifaldi & Co for your effort.

OMG you guys realize this is BIG news for sonic community right? Holyy i never thought we'd ever see brenda's artwork and neither cyber city!!!!

I knew of the cut stages, but this is the first time I've heard about different timelines. Truly fascinating! Stellar work!

This is just incredible! Thank you for preserving all information and art and sharing it with us all.

I really appreciate the "soapbox" part at the end. As a huge fan of Half-Life I'm all too used to getting so caught up in what could have been that you forget that the finished product was still really good. Would I love to see a game take advantage of all the cool stuff from the HL2 beta? Of course, but most of the stuff was cut for good reason, and HL2 was still a great game.

This was a fantastic work on the history and newfound discovieries of lost Sonic 2 media. Thank you for your contributions and discovieries in this games lost history. Fantastic video

Wow, impressive stuff. The 9-year-old in me who bought a Genesis Game Jeanie just to play around the in clown vomit that remained of Hidden Palace Zone on the cartridge never would have known that there was so much more to these levels. Back then, as a kid, I had barely scratched the surface, and you guys are STILL finding more amazing development discovies. Blown away, truly.

I've been missing the podcast so really love watching these recent videos! Great visuals and easy to follow.

Seeing this cut content in a way that isn’t just a low quality screenshot is honestly unbelievable. I never expected to see a higher quality Sand Shower, much less in an animated form. Crazy that’s there’s so much being discovered about Sonic 2, even 31 years later.

What a fantastic video. Just incredible insight to the making of this monumental game. Thank you so much for this and all of these wonderful presents this month.

I really enjoyed the soapbox at the end. As a game developer who recently lost 4+ years of archived work for a game that also had its online service shutdown, I was devastated by the loss purely from a preservation standpoint. Seeing how the game was the made, seeing the early ideas or future ideas that were to come, the prototypes that led to other ideas that were totally unexpected but made it into the game. All things that may never see the light of day. It's a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Despite that, those ideas still live on in me and inevitably will come back even better than before. It's what keeps me going. The human aspect of how games are made and what it takes to make them is extremely fascinating. Sonic 2 is such an interesting game. So much of my appreciation for game development comes from what we learned about this game. We've seen so much cut content and yet here we are seeing even more for the first time yet again. Really feels like I've been following the development of this game for as long as I've been on the internet. It truly is the game that keeps on giving. What a legacy!

This is awesome stuff Frank! You and I met in Portland a couple months back (went to your panel, then we talked at your table in the con museum) and while I knew of you prior, it's really great to see your work after getting a face-to-face.

Wow, great research and the fact that you got in touch with these original level designers to unearth lost level information is truly incredible. Thanks for creating a Game History Foundation!

Aweaome vid. Sonic always had that mystery when it came to unused contents. The brendas desert stage was in sonic mania same with the winter stage so i think they paid homage to her by looks of it

You know, I wonder now how crazy it would’ve been if they actually were able to deliver on this concept as far back as 1992? To have the levels change as a result of what happens/happened in the game’s different timelines as you progress, would be absolutely mental.

This video was so cathartic to me. Seeing that mockup alive and breathing made me feel something I didn't think I could.

Beautiful presentation and incredible information you and your team have brought to life. Thank you so much for this.

man; the original time travel ideas sound so cool. cd does time travel but i think the sonic 2 concepts sound much much cooler - there are two games i love that do kinda similar stuff - the end is nigh has the first three worlds come back later in the game in complete chaos and destruction; and the game spongebob supersponge has a level near the end of the game that is the first level but completely polluted and industrialised. that sorta thing is so cool; especially when you can recognise areas that have changed - the idea of seeing past and ruined industrial future versions of zones with recognisable setpieces or sections that are still different is rad

This stuff is awesome! I’m a huge Sonic fan, and seeing all of unused stuff as someone who has known about Sonic 2’s cut content is incredible. I realize now that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Pokémon Gold and Silver are pretty similar development wise; they are sequels to massive games that had a lot of stuff changed or removed. That stuff is so interesting to me.

Amazing video. Spent so many years being fascinated by all the cut content of the old Sonic games. What incredible finds