Sonic Chronicles walked so Mass Effect could fly. That's right, Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect aren't BioWare's only space-faring RPGs. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood has everything you'd expect from the iconic developer, from multiple dialogue options, companions chilling on the ship, even an almost romance. But, uh, the main difference was that it isn't very good.
Now, it turns out Sega made some odd decisions during development. Ex-BioWare animator Jonathan Cooper has revealed that the team had worked hard on a completely animated intro cutscene, only for it to be "inexplicably cut" by Sega, replacing it with generic gameplay footage.
The intro looks completely ready to go, so it's unlikely that it was cut because of time constraints. Cooper shared the animation in full on Twitter (thanks, Fanbyte), an insight into how much BioWare genuinely cared about this ill-fated spin-off. However, it is noticeably in a very different style to the rest of the game, and much more in line with Sonic's typical aesthetic, so that offers a possible explanation for it getting scrapped.
Alongside this discovery, Cooper shared some behind the scenes footage of the team at work. It shows that BioWare went all out creating interesting concepts for enemy designs and worlds to explore, much different from the rest of the Sonic series.
While the idea of BioWare working on a Sonic RPG might sound ridiculous now, it made a fair bit of sense in the mid-2000s. The studio was best known at this point for its take on Star Wars, the legendary Knights of the Old Republic. Handing yet another kid-friendly IP its way does sound like a smart move with that considered.
But alas, it just wasn't meant to be. Some fans fondly remember the story and unique take on the blue blur's world, as well as the freedom in how you spoke to characters - but not many players were feeling those RPG mechanics. Among the various problems, there was heavy use of the touch screen in combat, and it could be broken with its unbalanced Chao perk system. A sequel was initially on the table, but later scrapped.