Highlights

  • Sonic X Shadow Generations will seemingly rewrite Shadow's history in real time, providing more depth and backstory for the popular character.
  • The original Sonic Generations fumbled Shadow's backstory and characterization, leading to several other poor depictions of the character.
  • Sonic X Shadow Generations seems intent on fixing past mistakes by giving Shadow the respect he deserves, improving his place in the lore and cast of characters.

The 20th anniversary Sonic game is getting new life as Sonic X Shadow Generations. After Sonic Generations was released in 2011, it's being remastered and coming back as a supposed double feature release - giving Shadow the Hedgehog his own story alongside Sonic's own campaign to make Sonic x Shadow Generations.

While some fans are questioning as to why Sonic Generations is getting a remaster at all, Shadow's side story is what's exciting many players when it comes to this upcoming release. From the announcement trailer alone, it's easy to see why supporters of Sonic's rival are getting excited. With the return of Black Doom and other references to Shadow the Hedgehog, it seems that Sega's doing its best to show what the character is about. This kind of respect being given to Shadow is something that's been needed since Sonic Generations originally released.

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Sonic X Shadow Generations Should Rewrite Shadow's History in Real Time

Shadow the Hedgehog is one of the Sonic franchise's most popular characters, often requested to be added to every game possible, like Sonic Superstars, where including him goes against his own lore. Due to this, Sonic fans take what they can get with the black hedgehog very seriously, especially so after Sonic Generations itself began a very upsetting trend.

The Problem with Shadow in Sonic Generations

In the original Sonic Generations, Shadow is included as a rival battle, serving as an additional boss that players needed to beat to obtain a Chaos Emerald. It replicates the final boss of both the Hero and Dark stories of Sonic Adventure 2, where Sonic and Shadow fought each other in their respective stories. As fun as the fight with Shadow was, there was one clear problem with the fight. In Sonic Generations, Shadow wasn't originally invited to Sonic's birthday party, and he appears out of nowhere and challenges Sonic for no real reason.

Shadow's dialogue doesn't explain his appearance and makes it sound like he only cares about beating Sonic, saying "I don't know where we are, nor do I care, this is where I finish you," which undercuts how previous games gave the two hedgehogs reason and depth to their rivalry. This line was criticized for how Generations seemed to force Shadow into a role as a vague rival to Sonic where other characters could have fit just fine. Unfortunately, this one small cameo would start a trend that would last for years after the fact, in which Shadow would indeed be made into a generic character despite the depth he was introduced with.

Sonic X Shadow Generations Could Literally Rewind the Clock on Shadow

After the Sonic Boom multimedia project and even the Sonic IDW comics forced Shadow to be a rather mean-spirited rival to Sonic, Sonic X Shadow Generations aims to tell a story that "runs parallel" to the blue hedgehog's adventure. As a result, it might explain just where Shadow came from during the Time Eater's attack, effectively explaining the dialogue and recontextualizing the exchange that led to some of Shadow's worst appearances in the last thirteen years. It seems to also be fixing Shadow to better suit the new direction of Sonic the Hedgehog lore as a whole, likely to help prevent appearances that take away what fans enjoy about him.

It's quite interesting to see the Sonic series go back to change one of its previous mistakes like this. After years of lackluster appearances, Shadow's upcoming story is definitely cause for excitement. There's also an unspoken suggestion that the story will treat the hedgehog with the dedication he deserves after Sonic Frontiers also fixed Knuckles' bad characterization in 2022. Since Sonic Frontiers' writer Ian Flynn is also tackling what Sega is dubbing 'Shadow Generations,' there's hope that this additional story campaign will be faithful to Shadow's character, considering Flynn's long history of writing for the series across comics and now the mainline games. Fans will likely have to play the game to see how Shadow's story plays out, but no matter which way Sonic x Shadow Generations goes, Shadow fans are most likely in for quite a treat.