This article has a talk page!This page details pre-release information and/or media for Shadow the Hedgehog.
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After Sonic Heroes fully bought the blue blur and his friends back into the spotlight on third-party platforms, SEGA set their sights onto their next major project. For a change-up, it was decided to make a spin-off entry focusing on Shadow the Hedgehog, due to popularity of the character itself.
But for this project, they experimented with stuff that hadn't been done before in a Sonic title such as gun action combined with high-speed gameplay, branching paths, even aiming for an older audience for the game's tone, all justified with Shadow the Hedgehog's dark origins. In terms of the latter, the game originally developed with an ESRB rating of Teen in mind, as there's traces of it found in various prerelease material, before it was decided to make it with an Everyone 10+ rating. While it is unknown when it was decided, it may have been done late in development.
The game was released to heavily-mixed reviews by critics, with criticism going towards the overall unexpected mature tone of the game and the controls. Fan reception on the other hand was more divisive, with criticizing or praising the gameplay features, especially the branching paths. Retrospectively it's a passable game, especially when Sonic X Shadow Generations borrowed elements from it, thus igniting interest.
But overall, it was once thought to be one of the weaker titles of the series upon its release, before the advent of the next major entry...
Development Timeline#
2004
- Unknown - Plans for the next Sonic title start after development of Sonic Heroes.
- circa. Autumn/Fall - After Sonic The Hedgehog is welcomed into the Walk Of Game 2005 Event, a teaser for the next title is shown there.
2005
- Feb. 1 - Concept art for Black Doom is made.
- Mar. 8 - Shadow The Hedgehog is revealed more at the Game Developer's Conference 2005.
- circa. Mar. - The Entertainment Software Rating Board introduces the Everyone 10+ rating, which is considered by Sega on what the game's target audience should be for.
- Apr. 12 - Shadow The Hedgehog gets another trailer, leading up to E3 2005.
- May. 13 - A development build is created, likely setting up for E3.
- May. 18-20 - Shadow The Hedgehog is shown off and playable at E3 2005.
- May. 27 - An E3 prototype is created.
- Aug. 18-21 - Shadow The Hedgehog is shown off and playable at Games Convention 2005.
- Sep. 15 - A beta build is created.
- Sep. 16-18 - Shadow The Hedgehog is shown off at the PlayStation Experience event in Moscow, 1 and Tokyo Game Show 2005.
- Sep. 22 - Another beta build is created.
- Oct. 16 - The final builds across all platforms are made, concluding development.
- Oct. 31 - A post-final demo build is created to act similarly to the E3 build.
- Nov. 7 - Another post-final demo build is created for the 102nd Official PlayStation Magazine Demo Disc.
- Nov. 15-18 - Shadow The Hedgehog is released in North America and Europe.
- Dec. 15 - Shadow The Hedgehog is released in Japan.
Early Development (2004-2005)#
Some time after the release of Sonic Heroes, SEGA put up an online poll where users would vote for their favorite characters across the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise, consisting of those that appeared in the aforementioned game. Shadow The Hedgehog was voted the most popular character, thus it was decided to make a game based off him. Much of the development team from the previous titles started development then.
Takashi Iizuka wanted to go for a more mature tone for this entry, aiming for an older audience whereas previous games were geared towards younger players, which was a fit for Shadow himself due to his darker personality.1
Iizuka also wanted to give Shadow the ability to use weapons and drive vehicles, which is something Sonic isn't able to do. Reasoning for the former is that they also wanted to do a "gun action" game for a while now, and they thought Shadow himself would be a perfect fit for the character. They further justified the gameplay choice with the shooting stages in Sonic Adventure 2, where they wanted to see how it would work with the series' trademark high-speed platformer gameplay.2
Fans have questioned whether Shadow the Hedgehog himself is good or bad, which is when the morality choice feature came in.3
Concept Art#
Storyboard#
Storyboard for the game's opening Sequence, from SEGA's U.S. archives.4
HUD Mockup#
An early HUD mockup that was found on Elena Macomber's portfolio's site. Worth noting here is the early HUD, the graphics for which can be found in the GameCube version's files, despite using PS2 button prompts. Also notable is the unused radar feature, remnants of which can be found in the E3 build.
Music & Unused Tracks#
During the production of the game, Jun Senoue went into the project creating songs that fit the game's radically different atmosphere, much closer to metal.5 Because of this, Jun started reaching out to other, smaller artists in order to create tracks for the game that fit the darker atmosphere, giving the artists a general outline while giving them mostly free rein.6
Broken#
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Album |
Alternate |
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"Broken" by the band "Sins of a Divine Mother" was originally intended to be the game's Hero ending theme, previously being released on the band's MySpace page in 2005. Jun Senoue originally contacted the band's producer and bassist, Danny Parker and Kyle Keiderling respectively, in order to try and get the track into the game. However, the band had already broken up and neither Jun or the two contacted were able to track down the band's lead vocalist, Wylie Biechler, in order to receive permission. Danny and Kyle suggested they record a track for the game with their new band, A2, in a style very similar to "Broken", which would end up becoming the track "The Chosen One".7 The track actually ended up in a prototype of the game from September 15, 2005, just one month before the game's release date, suggesting that "The Chosen One" was made extremely late in the game's development. The song has since been released on an extended play titled "Sins of a Divine Mother" August 24, 2023, marking the first official release of this song.
Who I Am#
Demo |
Non-Album |
Album |
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"Who I Am" by the band "Magna-Fi" was written for the game, though for what context is uncertain. According to vocalist/guitarist/frontman Mike Szuter, he was a friend of Jun Senoue, who had contacted him about creating a song for the game. Mike agreed and immediately wrote the song, while Jun traveled from Japan to Las Vegas to meet him. Mike had assumed Jun was going to record his parts for the song as lead guitarist (which were originally done by Mike himself), but when Jun arrived, he explained that he didn't want this song, but instead wanted to create a song with the band together. This resulted in "All Hail Shadow".8 The song was ultimately finished without Jun and posted to the band's MySpace page sometime in 2005. It was eventually released the following year on their album "VerseChorusKillMe", with new guitar parts recorded by their new guitarist, who had just replaced CJ Szuter, who had recently left the band.
Alternate Dialogue#
Rumors have persisted that the original English script was more "mature", featuring stronger profanity than there is in the final game (i.e. Sonic saying "Hate to piss off G.U.N." instead of "Hate to tick off G.U.N."). However, Jason Griffith, the voice of Sonic and Shadow in the game, has given contradictory answers:
- In a 2016 interview with Fund the Charity Room, Griffith stated he did not recall ever recording any sort of lines like that. However, he does mention that he does recall recording alternate takes for lines which substituted the swearing, such as saying darn instead of damn.9
- In a 2024 interview, Griffith stated he did record more swearing in case Sega decided to aim for an M rating, later clarified to be limited to only a few alternate takes.10
Despite this, there is evidence of stronger profanity being cut from the game, with four instances of the word "hell" being removed:
- In an early version of the CGI cutscene preceding the level The Doom, Shadow says "What the hell is going on with me?". This scene was uploaded by Cemre Ozkurt, an animator at Blur Studio, as part of his portfolio. This confirms that Jason Griffith did, in fact, record alternate takes.
- In the opening CGI cutscene, Shadow says "Just what the hell was that all about?". This was shown in footage captured at PlayStation Experience in Moscow in September 2005 by Russian Sonic fansite Sonic CIS. Notably, the lip syncing in the final game still matches this alternate line.11
(Source: sonic-world)
- The playable build at PlayStation Experience 2005 has two more instance of cursing that were cut before the final game. The first one is the G.U.N. Soldiers saying "What the hell is happening?", which was changed to "What the heck is happening?" in the final. This suggests that other voice actors (besides Jason Griffith) also recorded alternate takes. The second instance is when Shadow first encounters the Shadow Androids in the cutscene before Iron Jungle, he says "Who the hell are you?". In later builds, this was censored to have him say "Who are you?".
The E3 Demo for the game reveals that there was more swearing, featuring unused voicelines of Jason Griffith as Shadow saying "badass" and "bastard". Furthermore, a cutscene in the RC1 build features Shadow saying "ass". On the other hand, the RC1 build also features an example of a censored line, with the cutscene before Egg Dealer in Lava Shelter omitting Shadow telling Eggman that "[He's] going straight to hell!" This indicates Sonic Team were somewhat unsure exactly how much cursing should be included in the final game, even leading up to the game's launch, corroborating Jason Griffith's earlier comments about recording censored versions of certain lines.
Cutscenes#
Earlier Opening#
Watch on YouTubeThis early version was uploaded by Cemre Ozkurt on Vimeo. Unfortunately, sometime after May 2022, this video, along with the cutscene of the Eclipse Cannon, was removed from Cemre's portfolio.
- Shadow says "What the hell is going on with me?" unlike the final game where they remove hell.
- Missing sound effects.
- Uses placeholder music from The Lion King.
- Black Doom's voice is missing the filtered used in the final game.
- This cutscene is rendered at a higher resolution that being 1280x960 versus 640×480 for all versions of the game in order to match the output resultion of 6th gen systems at the time.12
Earlier Eclipse Cannon#
Watch on YouTubePretty much identical to the final.
- Black Doom's voice is missing the filtered used in the final game.
- Uses placeholder music and sound effects.
- Rendered at a higher resolution.13
Uncut Opening#
Watch on YouTubeAn early version of the opening movie done by Blur Studio. This was uploaded on Vimeo by Cemre Ozkurt for his portfolio.14
- It does not cut to any other FMVs made, instead being one large video of the Black Arms attacking Westopolis.
- Because of this, the scenes that are also in the final are extended here, and connect with one another.
- It uses placeholder music, as well as sound effects from The Chronicles of Riddick and Star Wars.
Similar to the Broken song above, the extended version of the scene where a soldier gets shot by one of the Black Arms can still be found in the Beta 4 build, implying that this was trimmed very late in the game's development.
Early Prologue#
Watch on YouTube During the Games Convention 2005 in Germany, an unfinished version of the game's prologue was shown off.
- As with the unused Eclipse Cannon FMV found in the XBOX version, each shot in the scene is numbered in the lower-right corner of the screen.
- A lot of the VFX hasn't been finalized; this is most noticeable with Black Doom's aura, which appears green rather than the red used in the final game.
- This version contains an extra shot of Maria Robotnik falling in slow-motion after she is shot by a GUN soldier, numbered Shot #9. This was removed from the final game, which instead cuts to white at this point, omitting this shot before continuing from Shot #10. A still of this shot was used in one of the trailers for the game, and a sepia-toned still frame is still used elsewhere within the final game. A full-colour still of this shot was later repurposed for Maria's trading card in Sonic Rivals.15
- In Shot #12, when the camera tracks in to the swirling clouds, no Black Arms aliens descend through the vortex. They do still fall into shot from above in Shot #13, though, suggesting their absence from Shot #12 may simply be due to the shot being unfinished at this point in development.
2005#
March#
Walk of Game Reveal Trailer#
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Watch on YouTubeThe reveal trailer for the game from the Walk of Game event for the opening of the Game Developers Conference 2005. Dated March 8th, 2005, this is the earliest known showing of the game.
- The HUD looks quite different to the E3 Build of the game, such as the bars looking more rounded and simplified and the ring icon having a gray background behind it.
- At the 1-minute mark of the trailer, an early title screen can be seen, predating the one found in the E3 Build as well.
April#
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Watch on YouTubeOne month after the Walk of Game reveal.16 Another trailer was posted. This build of the game is more polished than the one seen in the games revealed however it still far off from completion. This same trailer was shown off at SEGA's Booth during Games Convention 200517 and given out to the press via press disc.18
- Shadow remains static when preforming Chaos Control.
- The Chaos Blast was blue instead of red and the camera doesn't zoom into Shadow.
- The missile launcher reticle is different.
May#
E3 2005#
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Watch on YouTubeThis is the E3 trailer for the game. This trailer is also notably present in the E3 2005 build as its attract demo.
- There are no street cones at 0:23. (You can tell here since objects are visible)
- The taxi is in a different position, the brown object on the left of the mailboxes is missing, the tree was replaced by a phone booth and there are shelves on the buildings to the left at 0:24.
- The second battleship in a different position at 0:25.
- Some parts are different at 0:26.
- We can move Shadow's body around while skydiving instead of straight forward at 0:37.
- Seems to be the end of the Sky Troops but there are no jewel-like objects at 0:48.
- Enemy on the square-like platform while the rest seems mostly barren at 0:49.
- The last battleship is much closer since there is grass on the bottom at 0:51.
- The blood color is different.
- The missile launcher reticle is different.
- The sound of the drums in the song I Am...All of Me in the trailer itself is different. The drums sound more simple, and it's as if the drums were recorded last and created in some program like FL Studio and the like; below is a restoration of what it sounds like:
Additional footage was also shown off at Nintendo's Press Conference during a montage of upcoming Gamecube games. However, the footage used is lacking the timer at the top.
August#
Games Convention 2005#
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Shadow the Hedeghog was playable at the Games Convention 2005 held in Germany. Given that the black arms blood is still red-violet; the build is most likely dated between the E3 and Beta 4 builds, respectively.
Demo Differences
The menu is more barebones. In addition to placeholder stage and character icons, there are only three versions of Shadow available: normal, blue, and yellow, each sporting a tie and mustache. However, the game still loads regular Shadow, suggesting the others likely weren’t implemented yet. Remnants of this early menu build appear in the XBOX version.
Hoping into a match, and the battle mode is very unfinished. With no objects, no GUI, rough lighting, and the character intros are also broken.
Sadly there isn't awhole lot of footage of this demo besides gameplay of the Batte Mode and the Early Prologue.
September#
PlayStation Experience 2005#
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The PS2 version was playable at PlayStation Experience in Moscow, Russia, on September 16, 2005. The whole game was playable from start to finish, and despite the event being held relatively close to the game's release date, it contains a lot of holdovers from the Teen-rated vision along with other differences. It is possible that the build was actually built months before the event was held, as the Beta 4 build was built a day before and it already has plenty of the changes made to accommodate for the E10+ rating.
Footage of this build was previously lost media, only surviving as a few stills, until it was found and uploaded on February 22nd, 2026.
Differences
- In addition to the game running at PAL's 50hz, performance seems to be worse in this version compared to the retail PS2 version.
- This poor performance even extends to the opening FMV, which lags near the end (note that this isn't due to the video, due to the subtitles going out of sync).
- FMV's are uncropped just like the XBOX Beta 4 Build.
- The infamous Maria death scene is present in the intro. However, this one appears to be finalized compared to the one shown at Games Convention 2005. The gunshot sound is also different from the final.
- The GUI is using the same font as the E3 Build but slightly different, such as the counters for mission requirements, ring, and ammo in different positions. Also, the score counter is layer underneath the Hero and Dark Gauge.
PS Experience |
Final |
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- Black Comet and Glyphic Canyon still use the versions heard in the E3 build.
- Enemies such as Gun Beetles and Black Wings still do not explode.
- Object layout for several stages has been updated since the E3 build but aren't identical to the final.
- Prison Island, Iron Jungle, and Lava Shelter now have object layouts.
- Just like the E3 build, the ingame UI remains on screen when running to another character.
- Some dialogue is noticeably different, with different formatting as well.
- Shadow's opening line in Westopolis is "Hmm...'the day of reckoning' huh?" instead of the final's "Hmm...'the promised time' huh?" It's a mystery as to why the line was swapped out; he's referencing what Black Doom tells him in the intro, but Doom does not say the latter phrase in the final game (it is, however, an accurate translation from the Japanese script).
PS Experience |
Final |
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- Eggman's first line in the Iron Jungle cutscene is "Meet Shadow Android." In the final, it's "Listen up Shadow Androids."
- The Eggman's introduction in Sky Troops is missing the first "H" from the "Hoho".
PS Experience |
Final |
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- The Knuckless introduction in Glyphic Canyon, the word "Didn't ya" spells like "Didn't you?"
PS Experience |
Final |
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- Sonic's legs are clipping into the ground when you first encounter him before his position is corrected.
PS Experience |
Final |
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- The Chaos Emerald in Westopolis has a different effect when collected.
- Enemies still have a red/pinkish blood.
- Shadow's victory pose for collecting a Chaos Emerald has not yet been implemented.
- Cutscene loading screens display the stage the cutscene is set in, such as the cutscene after Westopolis using its loading card. In the final, this was changed to use a generic load screen instead.
- Glyphic Canyon originally only required you to kill 50 Aliens for the hero mission. This was bumped up to 60 in the retail release.
PS Experience |
Final |
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- The Prison Island cutscene drops Shadow in at a later point in the level.
PS Experience |
Final |
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- The flashbacks at the start of Prison Island and Lava Shelter's cutscenes are missing their "white flash" transitions.
- The ranking icons on the Select screen seem corrupted in some way, as they're not displaying properly. The rank images for the Stage Clear screen are correct.
- Stage Select screen icons are final but the circle is drawn differently than the final. This alternative design can be found unused in the Beta 4 prototype.
PS Experience |
Final |
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- The fire on the Story Select is missing.
PS Experience |
Final |
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- The cutscene before Iron Jungle is also missing subtitles for Shadow's last few lines.
- Lava Shelter is noticeably incomplete.
- The secret door has all five keys right in front of it. Also, the animation for unlocking it is unfinished.
- The Air Saucer can't make the jump at the end of the secret path, and the special weapon container is not present (they may not be present at all in this build).
- The dark mission originally called for only starting up 4 generators. This was bumped up to 5 in the retail release.
- The dark mission icon is not present, displaying a generic ring instead.
- The second generator's ledge is too high to jump to, with only a destructible box to help the player up. In the final game, multiple indestructible boxes were added.
- Despite completing the Hero mission, Eggman is still present in the Results screen.
- There's a strange debug(?) object in the center of Egg Dealer's arena, and the boss's health bar is missing. Egg Dealer also has an early HUD for its slot reels.
- Subtitles for the Neutral Path's Hero Ending are absent and Eggman's glasses are colored grey. Also, the cutscene itself doesn't have the smashcut to black when Eggman gets karate-chopped by Shadow but instead the camera shakes and then a fade-out to black transition happens. This same version is present in the Beta 4 Build
Tokyo Game Show 2005 Trailer#
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Watch on YouTubeCreated on September 29. A lot of the footage is reused from E3, however there is some new footage here as well. This trailer was shown off at SEGA's booth during Tokyo Game Show 2005, and was also included in versions 32 and 33 of the GameCube Interactive Multi-Game Demo Discs.
- The game has now been rated T for Teen by the ESRB.
- A still of Maria getting shot can be seen in Shadows eyes briefly.
circa. Fall#
Change in ESRB Age Rating#
Sometime around September-October, the game was re-rated to Everyone 10+ by the ESRB, for Mild Language and Fantasy Violence. The E10+ rating was introduced in the middle of development, causing Sonic Team to pivot, believing the E10+ rating was a good middle ground between the more "mature" themes they wanted to go for, while still appealing to their core audience. Thus a handful of changes were made:
- Many instances of profanity were removed, infamously, except for "damn".
- The alien blood was recolored to green.
- The shot of Maria getting killed in the intro was completely removed, however a black and white still of it was used for a scene later in the game.
Despite the changes, the game still ended up getting varying ratings in certain regions, such as a 12+ rating from the PEGI and USK, or an All Ages rating in Japan and South Korea. The other regional versions of the game also retained these changes.
Unsorted#
Unknown Trailer#
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This needs some investigation. |
- The alien blood has now been recolored to green.
References#
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150416044056/http://www.1up.com/previews/shadow-the-hedgehog_11↩︎
- https://segaretro.org/Interview:_Yuji_Naka_(2005-09-30)_by_GameSpy?rdfrom=https%3A%2F%2Finfo.sonicretro.org%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DInterview%3A_Yuji_Naka_%282005-09-30%29_by_GameSpy%26redirect%3Dno↩︎
- https://web.archive.org/web/20090622050009/http://uk.cube.ign.com/articles/645/645487p1.html↩︎
- Looking through old treasures in storage today! - by KatieChrz↩︎
- Jun Senoue interview by T-bird (2006)↩︎
- TSS INTERVIEW: REMIX FACTORY↩︎
- Danny Parker interview by Dennis Spielman↩︎
- Mike Szuter's pinned comment↩︎
- A Conversation With Jason Griffith - Fund The Charity Room 2016↩︎
- https://x.com/jgriff_4real/status/1796563592965484960↩︎
- https://sonic-world.ru/comment.php?comment.news.88↩︎
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- Sonic The Hedge how, Shadow Opening↩︎
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