"Sonic World" was part of an experiment to see how a "Sonic the Hedgehog" game would work in full 3D. It served as a prototype for the first fully 3D "Sonic" game, "Sonic Adventure," which began development for the Saturn but was moved to its successor, the Dreamcast. "Sonic World" uses the same engine as "Nights." Naka's refusal to share the "Nights" engine with the Sega Technical Institute (STI) team developing "Sonic X-treme"—a factor in "X-treme"'s cancellation—may have been motivated by his preference for Sonic Team to create an original 3D "Sonic" game. Naka later expressed relief that "X-treme" was cancelled. Naka and Ohshima said the most difficult process was gathering information to include in "Sonic World", as there were many "Sonic" games they had never heard of.