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If you ever needed evidence of the Sonic fan community's persistence, then you needn't look much further than Sonic XG.
Initially starting development in the early 2000s, the fan game (originally created by Euan Gallacher and Joseph Waters) has gone through many personnel changes and iterations over the last two decades — even at one point being worked on by Sonic Mania's Christian "The Taxman" Whitehead, under the name Retro-Sonic XG and Retro Sonic Nexus, after merging with other community projects.
Despite that, though, for one reason or another, it has never been finished, with Whitehead's own attempts being shelved in 2011, around the same time he began work on the Retro Engine version of Sonic CD.
Over the years, there have been attempts to revive Sonic XG, with its original creator Joseph Waters taking it upon themselves to finish the project, posting some development footage on YouTube and releasing several previews. But this, too, eventually petered out over time, leaving it to another team, Ultra Ring, to reboot the project, with the creator's permission, in 2021.
It's this version of the game we're here to talk about today, with the team having recently released a new demo that seems to be generating a lot of excitement and discussion in the Sonic fan community online.
Directed by ScarlyNight, Emma, joshyflip, and St. Nick, this new demo (available for Windows PCs) is reportedly developed in the Harmony Framework for GameMaker Studio 2, and allows players to experience a new stage, Final Fall Zone, in Time Attack mode as Sonic. Right now, there's no intro or boss, with the demo essentially serving as a small taste of the final experience to "gather as much feedback as possible" on Discord and on social media from players to help with the game's development.
There are a bunch of new moves for everyone's favourite blue hedgehog to discover, including wall kicks, wall rolls, chaos drifting, and dashing, as well as some fresh new enemies to beat, with the pixel art, in particular, on the project looking on point.
If you want to give it a try, here's the link to the website, where you can download the demo for free.