Sonic designer reveals the blue blur started out life as twin human boys with spiky hair

News
By published

Sonic almost looked completely differently

Sonic Prime
(Image credit: Netflix)

The designer of Sonic the Hedgehog has revealed the blue blur started out life very differently and was originally going to be twin boys with spiky hair instead. 

Naoto Ohshima, known for designing Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman for Sega's iconic franchise, shared the news via their Twitter account along with some early concept art of the character. "I made a game draft. An action game about twins defending the dream world from Thirteen, the boss of the Nightmare World. It evolved into Sonic," the tweet reads.

The concept art features hints at what would eventually become Green Hill Zone as well as some menacing-looking characters and two kids with a blue and red color scheme. The two boys, described as twins in the tweet, both have spiky hair - one blue and one red - and matching blue/red shirts with a gold star in the middle of them. The twins are adorable and probably would have been just as fun to play as Sonic, but it's clear Ohshima made the right choice by developing the design into one spiky character. 

Ohshima has revealed even more about the scrapped concept in the replies to the tweet. According to the director, a lot changed when Sega decided to turn the 'Twin Stars' project into Sonic the Hedgehog, however, some elements remained. This included the smooth terrain for players to run on and the loops, which we can see in that scrapped concept art. The idea of a playable character that would get around by curling up into a ball and zooming around apparently didn't come until Sonic was officially born though. 

Take a look at our best Sonic games list to see if your favorite made the cut. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.