Desert Zone

A scrapped desert-themed Zone from the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Conceptualized by Hirokazu Yasuhara, drawn by Brenda Ross, and with enemies designed by Tom Payne, its artwork was intended to be easily recycled into the later Christmas Zone, and would feature a hot desert setting in contrast to Christmas' cool wintery atmosphere. Unlike that Zone, however, Desert Zone made far more appearances in development material and even reached the public, with its mockup image fascinating the early Sonic scene and helping kickstart the community's interest in prototype and prerelease research. During development, the Zone was known by the working titles of Desert Zone, Desert World, and simply Desert by members of both the American and Japanese sides of Sega Technical Institute. Around the turn of the millennium, community speculation over its prerelease mockup image infamously attributed the erroneous name Dust Hill Zone to the mysterious Zone, inferred from a piece of Yasuhara's early concept art (as some English speakers use the word dusty as a close synonym for sandy) - despite Dust Hill Zone actually being the prerelease name for the final's Mystic Cave Zone. In the late 2010s, this situation occurred again with the name Sand Shower Zone (also from the same batch of Yasuhara's concept artwork), repeating the same name confusion the mockup had underwent over two decades ago.