It's been 10 long years already, huh? Time for a little comeback, or a celebration at least. Be sure to read this description before downloading, as it contains important context (and answers lots of potential questions & issues).

A little backstory

Long story short, after Sonic Hacking Contest 2016 and Sonic: Scorched Quest's huge success, I went on a hiatus from my ROM hacking activities and eventually I almost dropped my online presence entirely. Few years later, at the end of 2021, I was contacted by few friends of mine who always teased me about finishing Scorched Quest with a proposal: let's remake it, with your coding and our assets. This way, Scorched Quest: Reheated was born. We wrote down a storyline (more info below - we planned to show it in an intro sequence before the title screen), planned the zones and stuff, At first, it went really smooth - we did lots of art, designs, even promos in social media. However, ambitions we're too huge, time too limited and we lacked music-making skills. The last one was the main reason for this hack not being released back in 2022: just a few weeks before deadline we got informed that our vision, in fact, is not doable with the tools available. It pretty much killed morale, development ceased soon after and the hack, including this very version you're about to play, was never released. That was until recently, like June 2026, when I got suggested on SSRG's Discord server that I should publish it regardless, just for sake of community and documentation.

With this in mind, as well as my contributors' permission, I present to you Sonic Scorched Quest: Reheated (referred to also as simply Reheated or SSQ: Reheated) in it's full unfinished glory, almost exactly as it was left at the end of 2022 (except several bugfixes, intro/credit screens and a demo for Marble).

The Storyline

Some time after the events of Sonic the Hedgehog, a Renewable Energy Company™ purchases land on South Island and establishes its headquarters there. While exploring the Labyrinth Zone, they accidentally discover a mural depicting the power of the Chaos Emeralds when combined with solar energy. Blinded by the desire to harness this immense power, they quickly set about constructing a research station looking like what was depicted on the mural, ending with a facility designed to harvest solar energy and use it to transform the Chaos Emeralds into Flame Emeralds. Despite the significant risk of triggering an ecological disaster by manipulating such vast amounts of energy, the company activates the station; it begins to hover over South Island and starts gathering energy. Dr. Eggman soon learns of the facility and seizes control of it with the help of his army of Badniks. However, he encounters an obstacle: he cannot access the Chaos Emeralds. Consequently, he forces Sonic to collect the Chaos Emeralds for him, setting part of the island ablaze as a demonstration of what will happen if the world does not submit to his will...

Notable features

This version of the hack features one playable zone, divided into three acts: Green Hill Zone (act 1), Burning Hill Zone (act 2) and a boss act. Changes and additions include:

• Moveset:
• Sonic has the ability to use the Spin Dash and Super Peel Out, in the same way as they were presented in original Scorched Quest (that is, a mix between CD and 2).
• While equipped with a Gold Shield, Sonic can lock into objects and enemies (like a Homing Attack), and if there are none then dash forward or downward (when down button is pressed).
• Cutscenes progressing the story, including opening one in Green Hill Zone (can be skipped).
• Giant badnik mini-bosses make their comeback, being a slightly improved version of these from 2016's SSQ.
• (Relatively) Smooth act transitions and cool title cards.
• New and old badniks, including ones based on Sonic 3D Blast or Knuckles' Chaotix.
• New gimmicks, also water in act 2.

Marble Zone is available through level select, but it's simply a demo to show new art and badniks, I've decided to keep it playable because of new assets.

Final notes

Anything seen in this version of the hack is known to be imperfect, especially layouts, and were considered for changes when it was still developed. We don't plan to return to this hack, given how much time has passed and things have changed in our lives and my personal view on Scorched Quest and it's variations. While feedback may be nice, it's unlikely anything will be done with it anyway for this particular project. I'm not saying "no" on future, unrelated developments though.

Notably, Sonic 1 music is kept intact, because of what I've mentioned in the backstory part. I understand this may be anticlimatic for some of you, but I've decided to keep it that way and not even put placeholders from 2016 version because it wouldn't represent our original vision.