Genocide City Zone

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)

»

Scrapped Levels

»

Genocide City Zone

Genocide City Zone
Beta Zone, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)
Number of Acts: 3
Level themes: industrial, underwater
Underwater areas: Yes

Genocide City Zone, also known as Cyber City Zone, is a scrapped Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Sega Mega Drive. With graphics designed primarily by Tom Payne, it was to be a three-act Zone with an industrial theme, but was cut due to time constraints.

Overview

An industrial Zone with a violet color palette,Media:Sonic_2_Tom_Payne_Development_documents.jpeg Genocide City was to be full of narrow corridors and tall vertical shafts, with acts 2 and 3 being partially flooded. Level gimmicks would've included elevators, trapdoors, chained spike balls, laser beams, sentry guns, conveyor belts, bear traps, industrial fans, electric conductors and extending spiky steps identical to those seen in Mystic Cave Zone.

The Zone has a lot in common with Scrap Brain Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog, being an industrial zone with underwater segments and many similar level gimmicks. Additionally, Act 3 would've featured a sequence where Dr. Eggman sends the player character down a flooded tunnel, which would've been almost identical to an encounter with the character seen in Scrap Brain Act 2.

Level maps

• 

  Act 1 Layout.

• 

  Act 2 Layout. The level slot "0e1" is written at the top.

• 

  Act 3 Layout.

History

Like most levels of the game, Genocide City was envisioned by Hirokazu Yasuhara and Yasushi Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi drew some initial concept art for the level and delegated in-game graphics responsibilities to Tom Payne. Graphics for the level and maps were produced, but before the contents were added to the game proper, a decision was made to axe the level due to time restraints.

According to Payne, the name "Genocide City" being chosen was due to the development team's "not quite complete grasp of the English language." During an interview with him, he went on to say that the team "may have been looking for a name that sounded dangerous," which resulted in the name "Genocide City". It is now believed that Cyber City was the name conceptualized later on in order to remedy the zone's former name.

It is often assumed that the Zone would've reused graphics from Metropolis Zone (akin to Hill Top Zone reusing graphics from Emerald Hill Zone), given how concept art depicts the two Zones as separate time periods' counterparts to one another.Media:Sonic 2 Level Map Concept 01.pngMedia:Sonic 2 Level Map Concept 03.png Further evidence for this comes from a Digitizer System document featuring Metropolis assets with Genocide City's palette.Media:TomPaynePapers Digitizer Pages image1554.jpg

Legacy

In the "Simon Wai" prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Genocide City is listed in the level select, but selecting it simply brings the player to a empty level. Chemical Plant Zone music plays with Emerald Hill Zone's palette, and the player will simply fall to their death at the bottom of the stage. Enabling debug reveals that the only objects in this level are the two default objects, a ring and a teleport monitor. Beyond the camera's sight is a couple blocks of Emerald Hill Zone tiles.

Genocide City's Level Slot (0E) was later re-used for Death Egg Zone.

Tom Payne's work was not entirely wasted - some of the graphics were recycled for the unreleased Mega Drive game B-Bomb, before being recycled again for the Sonic Spinball level, The Machine.

Metropolis Zone Act 3 speculation

Within the Sonic scene, it was often assumed that the Genocide City Zone would've been only one act long and that it was repurposed into Metropolis Zone Act 3 rather than scrapped entirely. A common argument used in support of this theory was the English translation of a quote featured in Sonic Jam Official Guide, where Yuji Naka states that Metropolis Act 3 was originally designed as a completely separate Zone.

“	Act 3 (of Metropolis Zone) was going to be a Zone in the first half that would only appear once (one act), but it was cut and placed after act 2. We had already finished the map, and it would have been a shame to waste it, so this is what we went with.	„
— Yuji Naka, from Sonic Jam Official Guide

This separate single-act Zone was commonly identified as Genocide City, although Naka's quote left the Zone unnamed. Further evidence for this theory surfaced in 2009, when Tom Payne was interviewed at the Sonic Amateur Games Expo; the interviewers told Payne about this supposed connection between Genocide City and Metropolis Act 3, which led him to speculate that Hirokazu Yasuhara might have reused elements from Genocide City in Metropolis' third act.

As further development material for both Zones has since become public, including the knownledge that Genocide City was supposed to have three acts rather than one, this theory has become increasingly implausible. It is likely that Naka's quote either refers to a different scrapped Zone that was turned into Metropolis Act 3 or that it has been misunderstood and actually refers to some entirely different reason for giving the Zone a third act.