The time has come — please visit sonic2hd.com to download the demo release!
As Sonic 2 HD is very much a work-in-progress, you may encounter bugs while playing. We have found plenty in our testing and have done what we can to squash them, but our small team can’t find them all on our own. You can help us improve the experience further by letting us know what you found.
We hope you enjoy playing this first taste of Sonic 2 HD as much as we have enjoying building it. Thank you all for your support!
HOLY SHIT Downloading now so excited :3
THANKS!!! <33333
is there a way to make my game less slow cause i went on it and it was very slow for me can you help me with it is there a setting if so can you tell me
Sterling, your issue is your hardware. Consider getting a better graphics card or processor.
What machine are you running it on? Might be time for an upgrade.
I don’t even have a proper graphics card and it ran great lol.
Had it running off the Intel 4600 graphics built into my 5yr old I7-4771 CPU.
this is a pretty stuped question butAre u on Windows Xp?if so
it doesnt work that well but i beleave it works but slow. if not all i can say is try and free some space.
Thank you so much for this awesome project. Hope you can work with sega and make this official for Consoles and PC (and who knows, maybe you can do it for sonic 1 and s3k too ;)).
This is so fantastic! I’ve just finished playing through the demo, I only expected it to be Emerald Hill Zone, but you guys went above & beyond. Absolutely worth the wait, and I can barely contain myself with excitement for the full game. Everyone involved should be extremely proud of themselves!
It would be very nice if you could include control settings. It is very hard to play if one is used to platforming using a keyboard with WSAD direction controls and the other buttons on the right-hand side.
Looks great, but I don’t know what “A” or “B” buttons are represented by on a PC keyboard? Agree that some clarity around that would be very welcome…
S is sonic jump and a is tails jump.
A, B, Sometimes C, X ,Y and Sometimes Z are Usually are link to the following: A Button = A Key, B Button = S Key, C Button = D Key, X Button = Z Key, Y Button = X Key and Z Button = C Key, Sometimes, ABC and XYZ are switched. The D-Pad/Control Stick is Usually the Direction Keys or 8 for up, 4 for left, 6 for right and 2 for down on number pad
I Tried That, But It Did Not Work
my computer cannot read the s2hd file and automaticaly delete it for me. what should i do?
try a diff file
The game was great I just loved the amount of care and detail you guys put into it.
что нужно сделать чтоб запустить игру на windows 10 86bit выдает ошибку Была сделана попытка загрузить программу, имеющую неверный формат. (Исключение из HRESULT: 0x8007000B) игру очень хочется поиграть а виндовс переставлять каждому пользователю занимает время
Well done with this Demo. You guys have done very well with it. My mother still has a Sega Megadrive that works and she and I would play sonic together. I have passed this demo on to her and give it the mother test. see if she approves which she will. Keep it up. Can’t wait till the final product.
That’s awesome! Let us know what she thinks so we can add a new tagline:
Sonic 2 HD: Kid Tested, Mother Approved
🙂
I can’t navigate through the options menu in-game since it requires an external controller, which I’m not going to purchase anytime soon.
The game will not work for me can you help me?
this game is AWESOME!!! all this time waiting this MASTERPICE
Mutch better graphics than Sonic Mania. Chemical Plant Zone is the most beautiful 2D scenario ever!
Absolutely fantastic work. Trying to be helpful reporting a bug: when I selected “restart” on Emerald Hill Act 2 on the pause menu, when I started the level again the waterfall sound effect played constantly over everything, even when I went back to the title screen. Just thought I’d let you know if you hadn’t found that one yet. Best of luck to you all, the talent and effort that has gone into this project thus far is truly inspiring.
Thanks Bubby, we appreciate it! Can you please share your PC specs so we can take a closer look?
I have played the first demo countless amounts of times and when i heard there was going to be a demo 2.0 I was really happy and now it’s released!!!!
please finish it this is awesome
Wow!! Seriously, wow! Keep it up guys, that was amazing.
Interestingly, even at 1920×1080 on a 5K screen, it looked super sharp.
Just emailed Kotaku with the link too, hopefully they write something on it as more people really need to try this 🙂
Waiting for the MAC version.
It works on Linux with Wine, so try WineBottler on Mac.
You’re doing God’s work, guys.
Minor gripe, but Emerald Hill still brings back traumatic flashbacks of Splash Hill.
Sonic, Tails and Hill Top’s zip line platforms appeared like black boxes, everything else looked awesome, but the game was a bit slowmo (old computer’s fault), I hope the game has more options like sprite downsampling and lower resolutions than 1080p to allow computers like mine to run the game properly.
Good job with S2HD.
Amazing work guys, a love letter to every Sonic fan!!
Gameplay, graphics and music are all spot on!
(…also has rumble support!)
Love the new top speed animation of Sonic,
as well as all the little animated touches in every stage and bosses!!
Keep up the good work, we will wait for the amazing final game!
I think, you should not only think about visual quality. but remember that some people do not have super powerful machines. so, somehow, leave options that improve the performance of the game.
Thank you so much for your work! I played this game in the Genesis console as a kid and it always was my favourite along with S&K.
Just one issue…. I see a black square where the Sonic and Tails should be. What can be happening?
These black squares are a bug that we are working to fix. Can you share your PC specs with us so we can better work to fix the issue? We appreciate it!
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3110M CPU @ 2.4GHZ
Memory: 8Gb RAM
Video Adapter: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
is it possible to play on a mac?
It’s only available on PC at this time. Once we’ve ironed out the bugs in the PC version we’ll look into the possibility of porting to other systems, but we can’t say when that will happen.
This is amazing guys, thanks so much for this demo and how much effort you all put into this, I hope that you all can get a chance to work with Sega some day.
Keep up the good work
Won’t it come out for linux?
Not right now. We’re working on PC only until we can eliminate most of the bugs. Only then will we consider porting to other systems.
you could actually play it in wine. tested it, works.
I love the game so far. I saw you have shaders implemented for the Half-Pipe Special Stages, but I didn’t see any way to access them. I guess they aren’t yet finished. As for bugs, I am playing with all the settings on and in Hill Top Zone, I get noticeable stuttering whenever I get around a lot of lava. I suppose the heat imaging setting is causing that. Just something to look into. Great work so far everyone!
Man.. No, it isn’t that possible… After many time, waiting and frustration… Now I can finally test an uphold version of that game… All good vibes and wishes to you proud programmers and designers. You can finish this project when you wish, I will wait many time was necessary to play it.
One doubt if the game is free of bugs, Can you maybe make a full version someday with special stages.
Just played through the demo. Great work.
Spotted a couple of inconsistencies with the original game, (water rising after a death in Chemical Plant 2 – not a big deal) – but managed to find a repeatable bug in Hill Top 2 where the lava is rising, if you’re particularly quick at reaching the top there’s a sprite error where a solid-looking wall appears and disappears just before the one-way door. The wall has no collision, but spooked me the first time…!
Thoroughly looking forward to the next playable release.
Do you remember where you died in CPZ Act 2? A screenshot helps if you have one. Looks like you also found a reoccurring bug in HTZ Act 2. Can you share your PC specs with us so we can work to iron out both issues you experienced? Thank you!
Playing this after Mania makes me miss the drop dash. Anyways, this is amazing and I was really sad when it first got taken down. Now it’s back and better than ever.
I’m the guy that posted here about the bug that shows black boxes instead of sprites for Sonic, Tails and Hill Top’s zip lines, I thought I would find a reply from someone or a programmer about a solution but I found no trace of my comment, I didn’t say anything wrong, just feedback and a congratulations message. The moderator that denied my message to be approved should be removed from that duty, if it’s you, then resign inmediately, pal, your judgement is poor if you deleted it, the developers need to know it has issues, you’re hindering their job and the success of this awesome HD version of Sonic 2, so you better tell them about someone sees black boxes in Sonic, Tails and the Hill Top’s zip lines sprites inmediately.
Thank you.
Every comment that is posted here on the blog automatically goes into review and must be manually approved before it’s published. We never deleted your comment, and I apologize if you thought that was the case. We’ve received quite a bit of feedback and it’s taking a while to get through all the messages, though we appreciate every bug report that is submitted to us so we can improve the game.
Can you please share your PC specs with us so we can look into the black box issue?
Oh man! I was waiting a demo for so long, I can’t believe I’m about to play it! I’m very happy! You guys are awesome!!!
hola excelente trabajo!!! me gusto mucho solo les quiero comentar que tails no tiene la animacion de cuando va a maxima velocidad como sonic siempre tiene la misma animacion. gracias por su trabajo.
Hi guys! I did a full playthrough of what you’ve got so far and I have to say I’m massively impressed. I grew up with the classic Sonic games and this is well on its way to becoming a masterpiece.
Bugs I encountered:
Green Hill: Flawless! I can’t think of anything weird that happened here.
Some clipping occurred in areas of Chemical Plant, especially on the fast loops. Nothing massive, though. I never clipped through and died or glitched.
Hill Top was very very VERY slow. The lag didn’t make it unplayable for me and I was still able to finish it without issue but it’s still a significant slowdown.
Please keep up the fantastic work!
i use windows 10, when I put it in full screen and start playing, the audio of the eseranio fails
We’ll look into that. Can you provide your full PC specs so we know a little more detail? We appreciate it!
Great remake and awesome animatios but… I can’t fly with Tails?¿ Why?
Tails wan’t able to fly in S2, which I found out after playing the original S2HD demo (back from the old engine) and then popping up the original Sonic 2 for the Sega Genesis and finding out that I couldn’t fly.
This is wonderful. Thank you for this and for bring this gem to a higher level (Super Emerald level)! You rock. Period.
I have a question though: do you plan to move your old posts from the devblog to this website? I’m sad to see that all your nice Staff Attack web pages are not working anymore.
Congratulations again for this game. You’re part of my personal pantheon!
Just came to drop a line and comment that this is some really fantastic work. The attention to detail, character animations, and audio work is just incredible. This project has a polish on it that is awe inspiring. Great work guys/gals!
I watched a YouTube video of this, and it looks awsome!
Suggustion: Would you please add Act 1 Minibosses, optional move sets (dropdash, insta-sheild & super peel-out) and the scrapped zones? (Including a 2 act version of Hidden Palace Zone from Sonic 2 2006 remake) That would add some unique aspect that separates Sonic 2 HD from Sonic 2.
*gameplay aspect
Boi this is Sonic 2 not Sonic 3 or Mania
i experienced a bug in chemical plant with tails…he was phasing through the ground on the slopes
I don’t develop this game, but from my own game design experience, it might be because of lag. I hope that the S2HD team can confirm this.
Hey, I’ve been trying to play Sonic 2 HD, but every time I try to play it, it never loads, it just stays at a black screen.
Like, I mean, it loads nothing. No music, no visuals, nothing.
I’m running this off my Windows 10 laptop, and to my knowledge my laptop is completely able to run it, but it just never does.
Could you help me?
Hey ! Thank you for the huge work and efforts. I was so excited to be able to play the demo but unfortunately it doesn’t run properly on my PC. Instead of the characters I have big black squares ^^’ My PC has the requirements to make it run.
Any chance of adding retro versions of the Act 2 music remixes (and Metropolis Zone’s Act 3 remix, I guess) as easter eggs? I kept bringing this up in the Dev Blog, and you never responded to my knowledge.
Amazing fan game, and the best Sonic one by far. Looking forward to seeing what else you guys cook up.
10/10. Thank you for this.
THANK YOU. This is a monumental step forward for all Sonic fans around the globe. I just finished the demo and true enough, you’ll need some decent hardware to push this great game. Phenomenal work guys! I’m looking forward to the S2HD soundtrack! Definitely make that available soon and give a special shout out to the artists that breathed new musical life into these zones! THIS IS WHAT THE FANS WANTED ALL ALONG. THIS is how you give a classic game a proper facelift! Again I say, WELL DONE.
this game needs a 32-bit support. my computer is 32-bit and i cant play demo 2.0. i was only able to play the alpha release…
hey man, looks great, but the download isnt compatible with linux, could you mabye make it compatible please?
I have been working lately on extracting the music from this. There are a lot of tracks in the game data that are as of yet unused game themes. I’ll post more when I have something extracted. S2HD team, if you see this (and you’re okay with me continuing), see if you can let me know WHERE IN THE WORLD DO YOU LOAD FROM THE DATA FILE? I can’t seem to find it.
Anyway, that’s all I can really say for now.
Come on guys, this was amazing, I played the first beta and this second, what was that in Chemical Plant, Emerald Hill and Hill Top too, I have only one thought, how great will be Casino Night, Metropolis, Oil Ocean and my favorite zone, Sky Chase, can’t wait for that, it’s amazing, amazing and a great nostalgy, when I was a chield, my first game was Sonic in Game Gear, playet a lot in a Sega Segesis, don’t stop this incredible project, hugs from Brazil.
When will this game get released?
I found a bug. :/ When I play, Sonic and Tails are just black boxes, only being able to run and roll. I saw all the videos about it and it was awesome. Wish there was a way I find out how to fix it.
There is a slight annoyance that happened through the whole play through
a ripple effect not the water effect but a weird ripple that comes from the bottom of the screen up. and a black box appears a few time through chemical plant luckily its at the beginning and hill top has a few pipes that i clipped through but i didn’t die because a floor was under Sonic and the shaking in hill top is pretty nauseating and it would be really nice if you guys could slow the shaking down a bit. But the music is perfect and the sprites are amazing the animations are adorable and one thing can there be support for 720p?
and is there any way in the current build to go into the special stage? but I LOVE this I’ll say its a 1,000/10 i think it beats Sonic FORCES!!
specs: x64-paced PC
Windows 10
Intel Core i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50 GHz, 3501 Mhz
PS: The Black Boxes are brief flickers for 2 seconds on screen
Great work on the demo guys, though I have two little bugs to report.
1st: On occasion, jumping onto a spring won’t launch you into the air until you bounce back on it a second time. This was only affected by springs that shot you directly upwards.
2nd: When hitting an upward curve after rolling down a slope, the curve would slowly reduce the momentum you’ve gained from rolling down the slope, causing you to either stop into the curve or not being launched as high as it should have.
My PC specs : Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz
RAM: 16BG
Graphic card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti
Hope this helps you guys! Keep up the good work!
Can you add a key config screen in the options menu? i used to play my games with WASD… and trust me that its really confusing for me to play with the other hand
Played on an ASUS P2530UA core i5 4G ram, still being rather slow, especially in Emerald Hill. Is that normal? Graphics is impressive and the overall feeling is very good, but it does not feel quite like the original. It’s just like trying to walk in an ocean. I consider myself a die-hard Sonic fan (been playing Sonic since the 90s), and VERY interested in this project. I think you’re running down the right path, but the game still does need a lot of work in my opinion. Volunteering as beta tester.
Awesome game, very good work indeed. I love it, can’t wait to see it in complete shape. I really hope Sega don’t play blind and let this beautiful remaster go through, maybe other Sonic games? I can’t get enough of the songs in Emerald Hill Zone 2, Chemical Plant Zone 2 and the saxophone in Hill Top Zone 1.
There are some things that bother me with this demo, though. In both Hill Top Zones, I found a lot of dead spots where you can’t jump. On Emeral Hill and Chemical Plant Zones , there are a lot of loop-de-loops, and the camera kinda stops following Sonic when passing fast through them, he gets too far ahead.
Keep going, guys. I’m rooting for you!
Is there gamepad support?
For some reason, the game crashes when i run it now. But i remember playing this. What?
Guys you are amazing.. I can’t believe how good this is!!!
you should probably include a manual of sorts to let us know the controls, because i don’t know how to even navigate the menus!
Can this run on linux on a chrombook?
Does this game support controller? If it does, how do you hook it up to the game?
how i fix the error opengl 3.3 or later is required
Hey Sonic 2 HD feels great to play on top of all the insanely good graphics ofc.
Wish you the best of luck in programming these sonic 2 zones. They are really nostalgic and extremely fun to play! 🙂
Thanks for showing this old game (and maybe more sonic games in the future?) the love it truly deserves! I’m so happy to play these and a true supporter of the old sonic genesis franchise.
I hope to see more in the future and thank you very much for showing it so much love!
The game is really amazing, and I’m looking forward to the full release! Though I just wanted to point out a minor glitch with the rocks. If you stand on a rock as it breaks, you float as if the rock was still there until you jump. At first I thought this was a one time thing, but I was able to replicate the glitch every time I tried. Sorry if you’ve already fixed this glitch!
hello guys sonic hd team, i wonder why there were no updates in 2020? what is the stage in% of the project?