As a shock to no one, there are no plans for SEGA AGES Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Going to be honest, I picked this story up because our favorite Sonic the Hedgehog movie hater Tristan Oliver (no relations to John Oliver) picked this up from a Game Watch interview with SEGA Ages head honcho Yosuke Okunari and Naoki Horii where they talk about the upcoming SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog 2 release.
While its awesome we are getting SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog 2, everyone wanted to know if there would be plans to give the same treatment to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. Especially since SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will have Knuckles playable. Sadly, according to M2, there are no plans. According to the team, the second wave will be decided by SEGA but as hardcore Sonic the Hedgehog fans know; SEGA has stopped Sonic 3 & Knuckles releases because of copyright issues with Michael Jackson’s estate.
The twitter account @gosokkyu did a translation on how they got Knuckles in SEGA AGES and goes into detail on how the game was coded and how ‘lock-on’ technology worked and even how M2 didn’t know about Sonic Mania Plus content until it was announced.