Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog, commonly referred to as Sonic '06, is a 2006 platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega. It was intended as a reboot of the Sonic franchise for seventh-generation video game consoles. Players control Sonic, Shadow, and the new character Silver as they seek to defeat Solaris, an ancient evil pursued by Doctor Eggman. Each character has his own campaign and abilities, and must complete levels, explore hub worlds and fight bosses to advance the story. In multiplayer modes, players can work cooperatively to collect Chaos Emeralds or race to the end of a level.

The development began in early 2005, led by Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka. Sonic Team sought to create a game in the vein of superhero films such as Batman Begins (2005), hoping it would advance the series with a realistic tone and multiple gameplay styles. While it received praise from video game journalists during pre-release showings, problems developed after Naka resigned to form his own company, Prope, and the team split to work on the Wii game Sonic and the Secret Rings (2007). Sonic Team rushed the later stages of development, cutting numerous features and scrapping plans for ports to the Wii and Windows.