Desert Zone

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The lost desert level, referred to as Sabaku (Desert) Zone in a very early enemy sketch sheet, is a widely speculated debate centered around the images above — Sonic in a mock-up desert type level. This level is also known and mistakenly referred to as Dust Hill Zone.

As a side note, this level was originally planned with a "present" (Desert Zone) and a "past" (Rock Zone), but the idea of time travel was quickly dropped and it's quite possible that it never got to be implemented in this game.

Before its level artist Brenda Ross unveiled this screen was in fact a mockup image for promotional use, this could already be deduced based on three things:

• The HUD is not in italics, and a "08" instead of the typical "8" is shown.
• Sonic is off-centered in the photo.
• The running sprite uses a walking sprite from Sonic 1, which would be incorrect for the development timeline the picture was shown in.

It was going to take place in a typical southwest American desert and feature lots of quicksand. There are cactus in this level, and the zone would have been playable underground and above ground.

According to Brenda Ross and Tim Skelly, most of the graphic tiles would be reused (with different colors) in a separate winter level.

In technicality, there is no piece of animation or art discovered as of yet to show that the "desert level/zone" was a playable level.

In the pictures above, the left and middle ones use inaccurate colours while the one on the right is using the correct colours. The middle one was printed on the back of a Sears, Roebuck and Co. Magazine from a November/December issue of 1992. None of these pictures were accompanied with a caption mentioning any level name.

Interviews with Brenda Ross

The first interview conducted by Deviance on February 2001 to Brenda Ross, the artist who oversaw the art production of the desert level, is deemed unreliable, so confirmation by Brenda on whether the desert level was called "Dust Hill" is sketchy, mainly from the bombardment of e-mails asking about the level and it's name "Dust Hill".

Brenda Ross said she had always called this level "desert level" or "desert zone", which is coincidentially the name that can be seen in some early concept sketches. However, she has sometimes referred to it as Dust Hill after having received a huge batch of fan mail asking about a desert called Dust Hill. They were convinced that was the desert's real name because it made sense to them, but during the development of this game no official sources have given this desert other name than just "Desert Zone", as far as we know.

Returning to the desert level

Several enthusiasts in the community, such as Esrael with his hack, Sonic 2 Delta, have used the image of this desert level to create full zones based on the artwork. These levels provide an alternative to perhaps understand how this level would have been had it moved past the concept stage.

Other details for this zone are still unknown, and so other pieces of information are missing from this article.