Fans vs. official releases series, part 5 of 9: fan projects that went beyond what official releases delivered, and what happened to them.
This is the series’ happiest chapter after Black Mesa: the fan who built his own game engine, showed SEGA what it could do and ended up making one of the most praised Sonic games in decades.
From fan to developer
Australian developer Christian Whitehead, known as The Taxman, created the Retro Engine in 2007 for a fan game, Retro Sonic, praised for its accuracy to the originals. In 2009, when SEGA asked fans for iOS game ideas, he answered with a video of Sonic CD running on an iPhone. By his account, it took “about a year or so” to convince the company to let him do the port.
What came next
Whitehead’s Sonic CD came out in 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iPhone, Android and PC, with widescreen and new options, far beyond simple emulation. In 2013, he and Simon “Stealth” Thomley of Headcannon remastered Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 2 for mobile, also on the Retro Engine.
The next step was a new game. Whitehead showed a playable prototype to Sonic Team producer Takashi Iizuka, and the result was Sonic Mania, released in August 2017, made with Headcannon and PagodaWest Games, a studio whose members had worked on an unofficial high-definition remaster of Sonic 2. Sonic Mania Plus followed in 2018, and Whitehead later co-founded Evening Star, which released Penny’s Big Breakaway in 2024.
Why it matters for preservation
The case shows what a company gains when it treats fans’ talent as a partnership: versions that respect the original and expand it. The Retro Engine also powers Sonic Origins, the 2022 collection with Sonic 1, 2, 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CD, available on Steam and consoles alongside Sonic Mania.
Earlier in the series: Black Mesa, GTA Trilogy vs. re3/reVC, Zelda 64: Recompiled, Mega Man X Legacy Collection.
Where to buy: Sonic Origins on Amazon
Source: SEGA and Christian Whitehead.
Max Xavier
