Almost a full sixteen years following its initial November 2008 release, Sonic Unleashed finally has a fully-blown native PC port, dubbed Unleashed Recompiled. This is a Recompiled PC port, specifically, thanks to fan efforts pioneering the XenonRecomp and XenosRecomp tools used to do it, allowing for PowerPC code and Xenos shaders to be converted into x86 PC-compatible C++ and HLSL code, respectively.
This also means that, in theory, any Xbox 360 game should now be fully Recompilable for native PC port goodness, including those unsupported by modern Xbox Backward Compatibility, effectively freeing several games from the graveyard — and opening the doors of modding wider than ever. If this sounds familiar to you, it might be because a similar endeavor gave us Zelda 64: Recompiled and N64: Recompiled, which we’ve covered previously.
Watch On
Locking in on Sonic Unleashed specifically, one may be left wondering what exactly pushed fans so far as to make a native PC port before Sega did. In truth, Sonic Unleashed has long been something of a white whale for the Sonic modding community on PC — the Unleashed Project and several related mods have long existed to port most of the game’s highlight content (Daytime stages, which inspired all future Boost formula gameplay) into the original PC port of Sonic Generations. Until Xbox Series S/X Backwards Compatibility and FPS Boost capabilities were added, modding Generations PC was the only way to play these levels at a silky-smooth 60 FPS, since the original PS360 hardware could often dip below 30 FPS trying to run Unleashed‘s massive levels flush with graphical flourishes like full Global Illumination (though pre-baked rather than today’s modern RTGI).
In more recent years, progress on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 emulation through Xenia and RPCS3 has also progressed significantly, providing a venue through which players could play the full game on PC, albeit with a performance loss compared to Generations modding thanks to emulation overhead.
But finally, fans of Sonic Unleashed can enjoy the game in a form truly unleashed for modern platforms thanks to Unleashed Recompiled, which uses recompilation tools built on top of Xenia’s emulation progress, now refined fully into a much easier-to-run PC port. The PC port adds all the staple features one would expect, including uncapped resolution support and proper graphics settings. There are even some nifty extras, like a “Music Attenuation” feature that automatically mutes in-game music whenever you’re playing audio off a music player. You can also raise the FPS cap above 60 FPS, but due to the physics issues introduced by doing this, I highly recommend employing the use of Lossless Scaling or your GPU’s own universal Frame Generation solution to play above 60 FPS, instead.
Of course, those hoping to play with Unleashed Recompiled or wanting to make their own Xbox 360 recompilations will need to legally secure their own copies of the Xbox 360 titles, DLC, etc, as with any emulation-adjacent project. But compared to having to play these games on consoles — particularly considering the fact that Unleashed Recompiled even supports fully-blown graphics and gameplay mods like Foreign Input System and Improved Progression via the HedgeModManager — the best choice for playing Xbox 360 games is now more obvious than ever.
Welcome to PC, Sonic Unleashed — we’ve been waiting for you.