The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Me - What is the timeline order of the new Sonic stuff released in November and December of 2022?
Ian Flynn - I'm assuming you mean Frontiers stuff. I guess in which case Tails Tube, the comic, the initial cut scene out of the game, the Knuckles special and then everything else is straight forward.
(23:00)

I am probably going to ask this question a second time after Sonic Prime comes out because that is what I was really wanting to know.

 

Perhaps word it like:
"Of the three mediums: Games, IDW and Sonic Prime, what order in the timeline do they take place? Does Sonic Prime happen after IDW or a specific issue of that comic, for instance?"

I would wager Sonic Forces, Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics), Sonic Prime and then Sonic Frontiers, myself.

• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics) directly ties into what happened with Sonic Forces.
• Sonic Prime is pretty standalone but as mentioned the comic stems directly so it can't be before it.
• Sonic Frontiers has the cast mention wanting to go their own way at the end, which would be a bit odd to have them immediately group up again right after, so Sonic Prime likely comes before it.

I've no idea how to fit Team Sonic Racing into things though, since that came out during the early run of Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics), due to what happened with Zavok in the Metal Virus and Bad Guys arcs. I would assume it takes place in whatever break the comic would have to establish for Sonic Frontiers and, subsequently, Sonic Prime though since Robotnik is active, so post-Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics), pre-Sonic Prime perhaps?

Or pre-Sonic Forces, since Robotnik mentions him having the Death Egg, perhaps that's the one seen in Sonic Forces, and it gets out the way of this as well... nothing I can recall stopping Zavok partaking in a race before Dr. Starline later comes collecting...

 

https://twitter.com/whisperwoIf/status/1602340839900205056?s=20&t=TMb_YLjosPPGqkz1ibhfhw

This is...interesting. My reading of it is that Prime takes place after all the games, even those yet to be released. On the one hand, I kind of get it. Someone, somewhere didn't want to be tied down by making sure this fit in a particular place, or the lore committee just decided this was the best place for the show to go. At the same time, though, I wonder why that's the case. I don't really expect Prime to tell a story that can only work when placed at the end of the timeline. Sonic can be overconfident at any time and I don't necessarily see the idea of the conflict being routine as something that adds to the plot, especially when it was already routine by Sonic Adventure, even before then when including stuff like Fighters. At any rate, I'll wait and see how things play out, or perhaps my understanding is off and this just means Prime takes place after everything up to Frontiers.

I'm personally expecting the Frontiers cast developments to either pay off in the coming DLC or within the IDW book, personally. I suppose that's neither here nor there, really, since what's being raised is so new that it's too soon to see much come of it, but it's a possibility I think ought to be considered.

With regards to TSR, it's in the really awkward position of (seemingly) being the last game released before the canon reshuffle. The elements it introduces to the setting seem to exist for the sake of implictly facilitating the now defunct two worlds setup and to get us to stop asking questions about it. When Ian has said regarding the reshuffle that not everything can be kept and some things just don't fit as they are, I'd say it isn't something that just affects the classic games. With that said, I'm inclined to agree with the suggestion of putting it before Forces since that keeps things fairly neat. As for why it isn't referenced in IDW...honestly I think it's just the nature of the game. While it has some plot, it's not nearly as much as the Riders games and at the end of the day it's a light and silly racing game, so I doubt that there's much call for it to have a meaningful impact on current IDW plot threads, at least until they decide to bring Dodon Pa into the book for whatever reason (assuming SEGA will even let that happen right now, I get the feeling he may be an off-limits character - just a hunch).

 

Spoiler: Sonic Prime

Indeed, and he's going through the Sonic Lost World 'character development' again (headstrong, rushes in and screws things up while Tails tries to warn him off...), I feel a more experienced Sonic wouldn't fall into that trapping again...

Imagine if the Metal Virus got a hold of him and his dimensional engine... though the virus didn't seem to be able to really do much beyond standard zombie tropes, so probably not as concerning.

Edit: spoiler'd response as Sonic Prime details.

 

I wanna ask him "Is Sonic 2's Hidden Palace canon? Could there be a third Hidden Palace in South Island? Does S3's Hidden Palace exist in modern continuity?".

But any of you could ask this for me

 

@BlackHole I'll be honest...I've not played TSR myself and it's been a while since I watched all the cutscenes, but I don't think the Metal Virus would do much with a dimensional engine, at least not without outside influence (read: Eggman). The Metal Virus specifically turns organic cells into synthetic ones (effectively roboticisation taken to its logical conclusion), but has no effect on processed materials. Unless the dimensional engine is at least partially organic, then the virus would just slide right off it.

 

Sorry, I meant more them using it to get to other worlds, not absorbing it into them.

 

Ah, I see…it’s a good job the plug was pulled on the Archieverse, because it’d really suck to live in the timeline where the Metal Virus Saga happens in that universe and then they get to the third crossover that takes place on the Genesis Portal nexus world with the Mario cast brought in as well (and maybe other Nintendo casts besides, not to mention all the other SEGA and Capcom series that showed up in Worlds Unite).

 

https://twitter.com/Kennyufg/status/1602386531334881282?t=y8Tf-N3If_4fb_7xzuYrWw&s=19

This is helpful ^
From what I understand, Prime is not set in the game continuity, but it is canon to the overall universe (the one which the games, IDW, and the on-line prologue comics/animations are all part of)
The games are all canon to the series, and the episodes are set in a future time, but they're not meant to fit in a singular timeline. I think that's also valid to IDW. The comics and the games share the same elements, characters, concepts and events, that's why they are set in the same canon. But if the games were to introduce characters/events like Tangle or The Metal Virus to the games, they would be portrayed differently. We know these concepts exist in the game timeline (as we see Knuckles mentioning the virus in the Frontiers prequel story from the FCBD2022 issue), but it most likely wasn't the exact same storyline we see in the IDW continuity.

I could be totally wrong though lol

 

I think rather than “Prime is canon to the universe”, it’d be more apt to say the universe is canon to Prime. Taking that tweet at face value, it seems like they took the series except Frontiers as the base upon which they built Prime. Not really sure why the author suggests that Frontiers takes place in an alt universe to Prime, but maybe that’ll become evident within the show itself. We also don’t know exactly when Prime was being produced relative to when the canon was consolidated into what we have now, nor do we know whether the team working on Prime was made privy to Frontiers. It seems that the show was worked on without any kind of influence for future plans regarding the setting as a whole. With that said, I get the feeling that Prime probably won’t contradict even Frontiers all that much.

With regards to IDW, I don’t think this really changes where that seems to sit right now. While there’s a lot we don’t know about Prime, we do have some decent ideas on where IDW sits in terms of production. Seems like story arcs (including miniseries and special one shots like the anniversary books) are pitched on a case-by-case basis to SEGA, sometimes even with Iizuka himself sitting in on these pitches (as was the case with the pitch for the Metal Virus saga). From there, things get written and there’s some back and forth between SEGA, the writers and the editors to fine tune things.

Granted, there’s nothing to say this hasn’t happened with Prime, but at the end of the day we’re speculating on a show which isn’t really out yet. IDW will reach its five year milestone next year and is a spiritual successor to the Archie book, writers from which now have not insignificant input on the direction of the setting (I believe Ian has also been credited as an advisor on Prime). On top of all this, the series is fairly mercurial right now. We’re in the throes of a big canon shakeup and we’ve just had a major release drop that’ll see additional story content next year(?).

Tl;dr: While Prime doesn’t seem to be canon right now, it could be in the future. We’re also waiting for something irrefutably decisive regarding IDW’s canonicity to the games (probably an Iizuka or SEGA statement or more overt references in the games). Right now, it’s still early days, and what exciting times!

 

Ah, the Sonic Chronicles solution of just pretending like you're the last thing to happen because you don't wanna deal with anything else.

It at least seems to be backed up somewhat in the show. Tails generally sounds older any way we see him. (Which was also something they made sure to do in Chronicles LOL)

 

From what I've read, the quote posted is just of a review of the show. Not a quote from SEGA or WildBrain. I am only going to trust what Ian Flynn says on the BumbleKast at this point, or Man of Action on Twitter.

 

I wouldn’t hold out for an answer from Ian. While he is credited, I think he’s likely to defer to folks at Wild Brain so as to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes.

 

I just read the full review article on the show https://www.ign.com/articles/sonic-prime-season-1-review

Spoiler: Prime spoiler

The article mentions the show has a direct reference to Frontiers.

 

I'm unsure where else I could put this, since I don't think a Shadow the Hedgehog game thread exists or is inactive 17 years after its release (oh god...), and I don't think this warrants a thread of it's own (though perhaps a Potential Ponderance Thread for similar idle thoughts?). Since it's technically a consideration of continuity within a game, I'll put it here and move it if asked to once I know where best to put it.

Does anyone else get the impression in Shadow the Hedgehog that Lethal Highway and Glyphic Canyon were swapped around between the Hero and Neutral paths?

The cutscene leading into Glyphic Canyon has Black Doom emerge and be pissed that Shadow has 'deliberately disobeyed' him. Which, fair enough, Shadow hasn't fought off the G.U.N. Soldiers as asked.

However, Lethal Highway's cutscene has him approach Shadow, casually tell him they've got the third Chaos Emerald and leave, after Shadow has wiped out his forces in the city...

I feel like this should have gone the other way around:

Shadow simply moves through the city and collects the two Chaos Emeralds, Black Doom sees no harm, no foul as he hasn't actively gone against him, and has actually followed his order ("Bring me the Chaos Emeralds"), so tells him "we have the third Chaos Emerald, come on, we're going."

or

Shadow fights off the Black Arms and claims the Chaos Emeralds from them. This enrages Black Doom, who confronts him and whisks him off to Glyphic Canyon for punishment.

Did anyone else get this impression? It just seems off continuity-wise, but that game is a mess of story...

 

So there's this-

-and then this:

I wasn't aware there were two interviews with different questions. One is saying the series takes place in the game continuity, the other says it is set in the same universe, with the pre-established mythology, but a separate timeline.

I can't sleep. Please help me.

 

My policy is that, if it doesn’t contradict the current canon, I consider it soft canon until someone gives us a straight answer.

 

"Timeline" here seems to mean "no notable place for it", just like IDW and its growing amount of sequential events, which is not too different from how single games operate anyways.

 

You tell me that Sonic Prime is canon and then within the first 10 minutes of the first episide Sonic says that Flickies not coming out of robots is new.

Could you provide a link to this interview?

 

That can really just be chalked up to people not having the encyclopedic knowledge of Sonic the Hedgehog that would make that line stick out to people who have played every single game. I'm gonna bring up Chronicles again because that's just a really good example, the developers of that were clearly fans and clearly put together something that used the best of their knowledge of the franchise, but their knowledge was limited by what they saw of the franchise and nobody in the process took issue with the smallest of disagreeing details in it, like the layout of Angel Island, varying size of the Chaos Emeralds, identification of more than one Gizoid, the status and locations of Green Hill Zone, Central City, Mystic Ruins, and Station Square in relation to each other...

It's not going to be exact when stuff like this doesn't have such strict monitoring, and people who work on something in relation to a franchise will always say that their stuff is absolutely a part of what it is. so as long as nothing contradicts it by saying Sonic got married or something: it's canon.