AWAKENING NEWSLETTER (10/31/2025)
INTRODUCTION
Here it is, the second newsletter.
Once more I’d like to thank everyone for your continued patience and my apologies for this not coming out sooner.
It may seem like things are slow but we are actually quite ahead with the project, we’ve been working diligently and taking our time. For a project that’s only been in development for less than a year, I’d say that, so far, things have been moving along quite well, especially considering the fact that several other well-known Sonic.exe characters & projects have had years to both be developed and establish themselves. We had to spend the first half of the development process thus far working on the general lore and worldbuilding using the previous iteration of the character’s lore which wasn’t really much other than a design and a premise. And yet, I’ve been very impressed with how much has been accomplished within a small timeframe. By now in development, we already know what we want and its simply a matter of getting there, although it will take time so don’t expect anything major anytime soon yet.
Before I address the elephant in the room, I’m going to say this one last time; please stop asking me about using 2017X in your projects. You’re all allowed to use him without my permission; I genuinely do not care. I am admittedly tired of having to repeat myself over and over, so please just spread this message around for the people who are fans of the character but don’t keep up with the newsletters. If there are ever any rumors of me wanting to genuinely remove him from a project, then rest assured that it is false. With that out of the way, let’s finally get into it.
Now, it's time to talk about what everyone's been waiting for: Sonic's redesign.
SONIC'S NEW LOOK
As you've seen already in both the cover image and the render above, Sonic has a new look to him. While the core of his design remains similar, much of his features have been reworked to better fit the direction that AWAKENING is going for with not just the character, but the main idea behind the worldbuilding, too. While I won't go into too much detail right now as I'd rather leave the majority of it up for viewers to experience for themselves come content release time, I will say that the way the in-game world in AWAKENING works is very... alien, to say the least. The way that the world and vessels are generated can be likened to a flawed AI trying and failing to replicate what its been given to work with, so take that as you will.
ABOUT SONIC
In AWAKENING, “Sonic” behaves similarly to the real deal, and most of his interactions with the other characters are surprisingly casual and carefree, although it may still come off as eerie due to his inhuman speech patterns and off-putting appearance. His actions tend to be a little unhinged at times due to how brutal he can get, particularly in instances where he’s fighting against badniks or rivals, the former of which he attacks with murderous intent since to him they’re just basic enemies and Eggman’s robots. His level of disconnection from what is actually happening is very severe; sometimes he talks to things that aren't even there.
Throughout his body there are imperfections resulting from poor generation, and he subconsciously poses and frames himself in a way to hide them. He is not aware of said imperfections, though he feels discomfort when they’re pointed out; particularly, his face. He genuinely believes everything to be normal, and that view mustn’t be shattered for him.
SONIC'S UPDATED VOICE
Along with this design update for Sonic, I’d also like to reveal his updated voice. While the character continues to be voiced by SimitarchVOs, he has been given a new voice direction to work with that was established for the same reasons as why the redesign was done in the first place. The voice is still mainly an impression of Jason/Ryan, although there is a notable difference in the way he talks, shifting away from the more mischievous/malicious gremlin-like voice from before and into something more like Sonic, but with a subtle dullness. If you’d like, you may take a listen to how this updated voice sounds like here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4dN-zumm2s
WRAP UP
Moving forward, I'll likely be more open about AWAKENING's development outside of just the newsletters now that we've progressed much further into development, although still expect the REALLY substantial stuff to be for the newsletters. Tails' & Knuckles' designs are practically done, so there's a chance that I'll be revealing them as their models are completed. I'm really fond of the character designs in this project so far, and I'm looking forward for when everyone else gets to see them since Sonic's design isn't even my favorite despite how much I like it.
As for our development objectives moving forward, I will be steering the majority of my focus on this project towards developing and finalizing several scripts for upcoming content. Once again, while you shouldn't expect anything proper to release soon, I also have a good feeling that it won't take AS long to release as many may think it will should development continue steadily. Our other main focus is to continue working on the environments and designs, including finalizing the ones that are just a ref sheet away from being considered complete. While we do that, we will also continue to work on other things for the project on the side, including continuing the music demos until we find a direction we are all satisfied with and maybe even some map development for a few of the areas. Regarding future newsletters, while we still aim to release them on a quarterly basis, I'm not gonna give any monthly estimates anymore, so just expect one roughly every 4-6 months.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter, and I hope to continue sharing more with you all in the near future.
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Oh yeah, and one last thing...