Earlier this 12 months, Sega introduced Fearless: The 12 months of Shadow, a yearlong celebration of certainly one of Sonic’s greatest rivals, adversaries, and frenemies, Shadow the Hedgehog. Previously, Sonic Crew inventive officer Takashi Iizuka instructed me Shadow is his favourite character within the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise outdoors of Sonic. It is sensible; in any case, because the director of Sonic Journey 2, the place Shadow made his debut, Iizuka was instrumental in creating the darkish hedgehog.
“Even now, should you ask me who my favourite character is, Shadow goes to pop up there,” Iizuka says. “Even after we take into consideration the inspiration of the whole franchise, Sonic and Shadow are actually holding up a lot of the franchise. They’re very fashionable and dynamic characters.”
The announcement of Fearless: The 12 months of Shadow got here shortly after the bulletins that Sonic Superstars was including a Shadow costume and that Sonic X Shadow Generations can be together with Shadow as a playable character within the upcoming remaster. Iizuka noticed this as an ideal alternative to focus on such a preferred character who occurs to be certainly one of his private favorites.
However maybe the most important part of The 12 months of Shadow arrives on the tail finish of the calendar, as Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the third theatrical launch within the Sonic cinematic sequence, introduces Shadow to the movie franchise. “So truly, the entire reveal on the finish of Sonic 2 did not come from me; it got here from the film writers,” Iizuka says. “That is after film one got here out and was so well-liked and everybody was like, ‘We have to do a second film!’ The concepts simply began flowing and a kind of very tough scripts that got here from the writing workers included that on the finish we see Shadow. I used to be like, “Oh my gosh!’ So that concept was put in there by the writers. The writers did an incredible job as a result of they know the followers, they know the viewers, they know the characters, they usually actually needed to make one thing enjoyable and fascinating and thrilling. They love Sonic they usually did an incredible job even at that tough stage of constructing positive Shadow was in that film two ending. So, actually, kudos to the writers and the crew making the film to know our characters and know the followers.”
Iizuka is worked up to have the ability to spotlight Shadow this 12 months, however hints that it won’t be a one-off promotional enterprise on the subject of the Sonic model. “On this 12 months, I am tremendous glad that we now have a recreation with Shadow featured in it with some nice storytelling,” Iizuka says. “We’ve the film popping out with Shadow in it and we now have quite a lot of highlight placed on Shadow, whether or not it is in a licensed product or animation or no matter it’s that is popping out, we’re simply very, very glad that we get to advertise Shadow a lot this 12 months, and we stay up for, within the coming years, with the ability to put a highlight on another characters in our franchise.”
Sonic X Shadow Generations arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Sequence X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Swap, and PC on October 25. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hits theaters on December 20. For extra on Sonic X Shadow Generations, learn our hands-on impressions right here.
