What would you want from another game starring Shadow?

1. Eclipse.

2. Shadow actually seeking something out. Maybe other bioweapons? I want a struggle he can relate to without just going back to Gerald and Maria again.

3. Frankly, if Sonic's going to continue with open-zones, I want him to drop the boost and go all-in on exploration and smooth motion. Shadow can keep making games like Shadow Generations.

 

Guns

 

Don't focus on his past anymore.
We killed Maria enough times. He doesn't need to remember another interpretation of her death.
Make a game focusing on characters who he has some kind of relationship with. I want a Shadow and Omega centric story. (but I guess the upcoming shadow one shot might be what I'm asking for).

 

yeah this is my mindset. There should be enough that distinguishes a Shadow game from a Sonic game and I think maybe Shadow is better suited to boost gameplay.

Would be cool if they create a new mythos for Shadow; give him new characters to care for and a new villain who isn't Black Doom.

 

Story:

Shadow has always been Sonic team's take on the struggles archetype, which means he falls into the classic struggle of whether letting him move on and find something new to care for will ruin his aura or not. Guts eventually found a new family, while Batman ping pongs between peaceful father figure and eternally damaged monomyth. I enjoyed Shadow Generations and thought one last revisit of Shadow's past was necessary after how slapshod STH was, but now I think if you're going to bring Shadow back into focus he needs to be put into a situation he's never been put into before. A situation he can't brute force. A person he's forced to make some kind of social connection with outside of his tribe. Something that involves a lighter touch than a sledge hammer. A new family to care for.

Sonic Team as gone back and forth on whether Team Dark is that last thing. I can kind of see why since, at the very least, Shadow and Rouge not always being on the same rhythm makes sense since Rouge's goals are often self serving, but there's also a storytelling even by Shadow Generations he tends to struggle with confronting his emotions. Why not force him to confront how much these two actually mean to him? We got some of that in 06, but in the same way shgens reran some ideas from Shadow the Hedgehog you might be able to do something here.

Entirely new characters for Shadow's side of the series would be cool too. Much as it would be to disturb Sonic Team's beloved trio setup, I think Team Dark could actually use a fourth that keeps the three disparate desires together like glue. I'll work shop that idea some more.

Gameplay:

Shadow Generations is basically Sonic Team's best take on the Sonic Colors formula, with powers and combat abilities implemented seamlessly into the fast paced gameplay. I basically just want more of this, with more 3D stages and Shadow's
movement reigned in a tad to allow for more complex level design. More reasons to use chaos sphere and chaos control, more complex implementation of doom blast and doom surf, with new powers on top. Find a way to refine this instead of throwing it away.

 

Id kind of want them to really start establishing a "verse" for Shadow. Much in the same way Wario had his own verse for a while.

 

An actual T rating

 

Pariah had a couple streams where he worked on an idea for a shadow game- I havent seen most of them, but it was basically a Megaman Zero type idea where shadow wakes up in the far future and it has a grittier darker tone.

Riffing off that idea:
-Artstyle shift. Like how Megaman Zero art is totally unlike Megaman X artwork.
-Give shadow a cool leather jacket and/or a tattered cape.
-Metroidvania level design with character action style combat.
-Biolizard spawn baby that shadow keeps as a pet.
-Takes place in Silver's ruined future. Lots of lava and ruined cities. Maybe use it as an opportunity to explain how exactly Silver's time travel works.
-Silver is a secondary playable character, Dante / Virgil style.
-Someone dies on screen with blood effects.
-Scrapnik Omega
-Eggman would be long dead by this point, unless he uploaded his brain into a computer or something. Sage could still be alive as a sort of corrupted super computer.
-I think they should bring back the branching plot structure from ShtH, where you have to choose which side of a war to ally with. It seems very fitting for an introspective character like Shadow. The sides would be the remnants of the eggman army lead by a corrupted sage/metal sonic who want to wipe out humanity, or the totalitarian government who are keeping society alive.
-When shadow ripped a stop sign from the ground to whack people with I thought that was cool.

 

I'd want a new story just for Shadow, including a new villain. Like, I don't want to see Eggman, GUN, Black Doom, etc. at all.

 

If they’re anything like SxS, absolutely.

I have a feeling the next actual Sonic game is gonna involve prominently both Sonic and Shadow though, so perhaps in the current time we don’t need a solo game for him

 

Personally, I'd like mission based gameplay where Shadow's sent out on missions by GUN. Whether that's open zone or linear levels would depend, but if it is linear than they would have to make a lot of unique level layouts, or at the least take the Sonic Colours route and make about 6 unique levels with a whole bunch of object layout changes.

 

I want for him to get a new girlfriend (a human, obviously.)

Honestly maybe do a near literal "Shadow Unleashed", let Shadow go around the world doing whatever and silently retcon the Doom powers to have stayed with him (because you know they intended for them to be gone completely) and evolve them as Shadow's own new clean break of a Dark Arms bloodline or something like that.

 

While I do like Shadow, I also agree with this. The advent of the open zones and Knuckles being the glide-and-climb guy makes an open-world Angel Island seem like a no-brainer, and Knuckles has been in dire need of some real character progression for a while. He can be the guardian, he can be the last of his kind, but I'm ready for him to stop being both of those things at once.

 

If it had to be shadow?
I’ve been saying this for YEARS.
Shadow May Cry
Doom abilities and chaos abilities would perfectly fit that character action style of format. In addition, that kind of free flowing expression of player skill is EXACTLY the kind of thing I love about Sonic, it would just be presented differently here.

He’s always had melee attacks after SA2 in some form, and with frontiers they showed that they can do more than just basic punches and kicks.
Chaos spears as your ranged option. With maybe some other stuff as well. God please don’t use actual guns.
Remove the inhibitor rings for devil trigger.
Chaos snap could let you warp around between enemies and combo off them.

Honestly Shadow just has Vergil’s moveset at this point lol. Make it happen Sega

 

Shadow Generations, except with new original levels, new story, characters (have Omega and Rouge around too tho') and new gimmicks powers for Shadow too.

 

I'm not itching for another Shadow game anytime soon. There are other avenues I'd want the series to explore first before diving deeper on its most overcooked character.

But, if it did happen, I'd really want them to focus on separating Shadow from the Sonic series as it currently exists. Artstyle, story and gameplay should all be given a new twist so that we're not simply playing a Sonic game with a Shadow skin ala ShGens and Sh05. Really just make it a genre-shifted spin-off.

Basically just not this. Lol. Save this for the main series where we might have a cast playable characters, inducing Shadow. If Shadow's ever gonna take the spotlight again, let him do something new, something that distinctly wouldn't fit in the series otherwise. Really take advantage of the opportunities that a different lead would open up.

 

I'm all for blending genres but I think at its core a Shadow game should still be a fast-paced platformer, like what Wario Land was to Mario. Wario as a character isn't the opposite of Mario, but an exaggeration of Mario on all fronts. Mario jumps on goombas, Wario clobbers them and fucking piledrives them. Mario collects coins, Wario is greedy and obsessed with gold. Shadow could be that for Sonic (figuratively speaking lol).

If Shadow gets his own series I'd also expect him to show up less in mainline games.

 

This sounds quite familiar… Based on how I remember that turning out, I'm guessing we’re going to get Shadow Lost World next.