Continuing the Year of Shadow celebration, Sega has shared a brand new trailer for Sonic X Shadow Generations, showing off several returning stages for Shadow’s side of the adventure.
And, just like with Sonic’s stages in Sonic Generations, Shadow will also return to levels from previous titles. Sega has highlighted three of them, and they will be familiar to all you diehard Shadow fans out there.
First up is the one we saw and played at Summer Game Fest 2024 — Final Chase, Shadow’s final stage in Sonic Adventure 2. We compared this to all the space levels in the Dreamcast and GameCube game, but Final Chase is clearly the biggest inspiration here. A side-by-side display where Sega strayed very slightly from the original level, but for the most part, this is a nostalgic journey into space.
Next up is Rail Canyon from Sonic Heroes — Team Dark’s variant was the toughest of all four teams in the cross-platform adventure, and honestly, the brilliance here is incredible. Lighting? Backgrounds? damn…
The trio is rounded off by a stage from Sonic the Hedgehog, or Sonic 06: Kingdom Valley. This one looks gorgeous and marks a pretty sharp, lush change from the other Shadow levels we’ve seen. The transition between the original game and the Generations version in the trailer is also superb.
Sonic X Shadow Generations is a re-release of arguably one of the best 3D Sonic titles, Sonic Generations. The original game launched on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and 3DS back in 2011. The 3DS version actually came with a few different stages compared to the console versions, including one that returns for Shadow’s campaign — the fight against the Biolizard from Sonic Adventure 2.
We’ve been very impressed with how Sonic X Shadow Generations looks and feels so far, but with very little Switch gameplay or footage to go on, we have some initial concerns.
Last week, Sega shared a teaser for the accompanying Dark Generations animated special. Due to launch in the fall — likely before the release of Sonic X Shadow — the three-parter will act as a prologue to Shadow’s story in the upcoming game. Additionally, eager fans have spotted a teaser on the official website that hints at a fourth playable character. Who could it be?
