Summary

• Sonic X Shadow Generations brings Shadow into the spotlight with a new story campaign and fresh gameplay mechanics like Chaos Control.
• The game aims to blend classic Sonic elements with modern features, offering players a chance to experience the best of both worlds.
• During Summer Game Fest, Screen Rant spoke with Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Creative Officer & Creator Of Shadow The Hedgehog to find out more on the game.

Sonic x Shadow Generations aims to offer a brand-new way for players to experience the classic game, adding new content and improving existing elements of the game. As the name implies, the title adds Shadow as a playable character, and fresh levels designed especially for the beloved bad boy hedgehog. Screen Rant spoke with Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Creative Officer, to find out more.

The franchise’s last foray into the remastering world was 2021’s Sonic Colors: Ultimate, but the new Generations might just be an even more ambitious undertaking. Shadow’s inclusion goes far beyond a few extra levels - he’ll have an entire story campaign centering on the return of his nemesis Black Doom. Of course, players will also have access to entirely remastered versions of all the courses from the original title, alongside teased bonus content.

Screen Rant Interviews Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Creative Officer & Creator Of Shadow The Hedgehog

Remaking Generations, Giving Shadow New Abilities & What To Expect

Screen Rant: First, I would just love to talk about what kind of made this the right time to have a return of Shadow after so many years.

Takashi Iizuka: We had movie one and movie two come out, and at the end of movie two we had a scene where Shadow kind of wakes up, and we know that in movie three he's going to have a real important role. Movie three is coming out this December, and the spotlight is going to be put on Shadow, so we wanted to make this really the year of Shadow and not only in the movies have a good spotlight put on Shadow, but in the games as well. We wanted to portray Shadow as the cool character that he is and really give him another vehicle for fans to play, enjoy, and understand more about why he's such an appealing character.

And when you're writing him as a character, he is so popular because he's edgy, but how do you balance keeping him that cool, edgy guy but still keeping him likable and not going too far in the direction of evil?

Takashi Iizuka: Shadow was originally created for Sonic Adventure II, to kind of actually be that villain. He was out to destroy everyone on earth. He was going to get rid of everything. But at the last moment, he had this relationship with Maria. Because Maria loved everyone on the planet so much, he decided that - instead of destroying everything - he was going to save it kind of in memory of Maria and really to honor her love of everyone on the planet.

He went from being this evil character to actually having this redeeming value. Even though he was really dangerous and kind of dark, he still was super cool and edgy. He's had that kind of relationship, that contrasting relationship with Sonic. Sonic would be like a very happy bubbly, he's really our hero, and Shadow is going to be that darker, dangerous, dark hero that contrasts well with Sonic, and he's been like that. They've had that contrasting relationship ever since.

I would love to talk a little bit about the Chaos Control mechanic in the game. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how that was first conceptualized.

Takashi Iizuka: So, Chaos Control is an ability that Shadow had ever since Sonic Adventure II. It's always been the ability to stop time, but the portrayal of him using Chaos Control has been a little bit different in each of the games. Sometimes it was really only primarily some cutscenes, or other times it wasn't really used in the way that we're using it now.

In Shadow Generations' portion of the gameplay, it's going to be usable very similar to the original idea of the Sonic Adventure II Chaos Control, where you will be able to stop time and the whole level design is going to be designed around because Shadow can stop time. Once you stop time, what are you going to do? What are the platforms that now exist because of stopped time? How can you get through to clear the level using Chaos Control? That's all been part of the idea and the design aspect of all of the stages for Shadow the hedgehog, and it really depends on how you're going to use Chaos control to play to get to the end now.

Going back to the original Generations, with this project, what were the most important things that you wanted to make sure you kept, and what did you definitely know you wanted to move on from the original?

Takashi Iizuka: Sonic Generations was really created to introduce people to not only the classic Sonic gameplay, but also the modern Sonic game. They included the 3D, really high-speed platform action game play to Sonic Generations alongside the more classic 2D platform action gameplay that classic Sonic games originally started with. The whole point was to really introduce people who hadn't played a Sonic game before to everything that was cool and great and amazing from the history of Sonic The Hedgehog.

In addition to that, we're now adding Shadow content to introduce the Shadow gameplay as well. But the whole point of Sonic Generations was to be this vehicle to introduce Sonic to a new audience, and now that we have all these people coming in from the movie who maybe saw Sonic 1, they saw Sonic 2, maybe they haven't played a game before. Sonic Generations will show them everything great from all of our legacy games in one package. Even before, the machine power was kind of limited, so the game looked amazing, but we could only get 30 frames per second of gameplay out of the machines. The current generation hardware is so advanced, we're getting just as good visuals, but we're getting it at 60 frames per second, which really makes a smooth, fast game to experience.

What made you want to put Shadow content alongside Generations instead of a standalone game?

Takashi Iizuka: Some of the reasons why are, Sonic Generations was a really solid title. It was really comprehensive and showed all those great legacy moments, so we didn't want to really go in there and mess around too much. So many people loved the game, we didn't want to change that experience for them. It was great at introducing all the legacy Sonic content, and if we were really going to go in and start changing things, it might be too drastic. We'd have to add too much. We'd really make it a different kind of product, and we didn't want to do that.

Instead, we wanted to add in brand new gameplay with Shadow to a game that's already really popular, and we wanted to use a new game engine to do that. We wanted to make brand new stages to do that. Even instead of having a 2D side-scrolling white space that Sonic Generations has, the team wanted to go even a little bit further and create this 3D, open-zone area for Shadow to run around in his white space. That would be something new and different that could only be done if we made a whole different game instead of trying to put Shadow inside of something that already existed.

You've previously called Shadow's body a weapon in itself, because in this game he doesn't have a gun. Can you talk a little bit more about his body being a weapon and the choice to not put guns in this version?

Takashi Iizuka: Yes, as you probably know, both Sonic and Shadow will attack the enemies with their body, kind of roll up and attack technique and destroy Eggman or other enemies that get in their way. So they are weapons, they can attack without a need for a gun or any other weapons in their game. But back in the day when we were developing Shadow the Hedgehog, we really wanted to make a shooting action game, like a shooting genre, and in order to do so, we needed to give Shadow something to shoot with, and that's why he had a gun. Even when we talk about Shadow as a character, he's a character that will do whatever it takes to get the job done. If he has a gun, he's going to use a gun; if he needs to get an alien weapon, he'll get an alien weapon.

For him as a character, having a gun was kind of like a whatever thing. He would use whatever his tools at his disposal were to get the job done, and that was really the reason why they gave Shadow a gun in the first place. But again, he doesn't really need a gun. He has Chaos Control. He can stop time. That's a power that he has, and brand-new for Shadow Generations as well are the Doom powers that Shadow has. You'll be using these Doom powers either to attack enemies or use them as means of traveling around and traversing and platforming around. But all of these Doom Powers are going to be like the new unique abilities that Shadow has that he'll be using to defeat enemies and progress through Shadow Generations.

When you're developing new abilities like that for a character that's so established, how do you make sure that they fit in with the gameplay that players already know and love about Shadow?

Takashi Iizuka: When we talk about the design inside of Sonic X Shadow Generations, we have modern Sonic, we have classic Sonic, and then Shadow is coming in as that third character. There's a lot of gameplay design that's already there because it's inside of a Generations package, and it's really thinking about Shadow as a character. How is Shadow going to move within the Generations format? We need him to be a high-speed character and we need Chaos Control to be something that Shadow is going to use.

That's like the main design start for all of the level designs for Shadow. It needs to be high-speed, he has to be able to use Chaos Control. But they also wanted to add in other things that would kind of mix up and change the gameplay. And that comes in the form of the Doom powers, the new actions and abilities that it gets to use and making sure, yes, all the levels are designed with high speed and Chaos Control, but as you progress through the game and you learn or you're getting the new Doom power abilities, you'll be able to have players use these abilities, learn how to use them, and then design levels that really make the most out of those abilities later.

Through all this gameplay, releasing new actions and abilities and deg the entire experience from start to finish, they can make sure that it still retains a feeling of Shadow-ness. This is how Shadow would get through the world, and still have all the new content be put into the game.

Speaking of Shadow getting through the world, is there any chance we'll see some motorcycle-oriented gameplay?

Takashi Iizuka: I can't really talk much about what's going to happen in the future for the game, but I can confirm that there is no motorcycle in the game. But we do have Doom powers in the game that will act like a motorcycle, and you'll be able to use it to move around inside of the game, so do look forward to hearing more about some of the cool Doom powers that Shadow will.