Sega's upcoming Sonic Forces has just been on the receiving end of a brand new surprise: the super edgy Shadow The Hedgehog will be playable in the game. Sonic fans instantly rejoiced and jumped for joy after the news broke that the anti-heroic hedgehog wold be playable in the upcoming 3D adventure for home consoles and PC.
Eurogamer is reporting that Sega has indeed confirmed that Shadow the Hedgehog will be playable in the upcoming Sonic Forces, which is due out this fall for PC, PS4, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch. Shadow, however, won't be playable at launch. The game will receive a DLC pack that journeys into Shadow and Infinite's past relationship, uncovering more about the anti-hero and the new villain.
Sega is also promising that the DLC will be free for those who own Sonic Forces. You won't even have to buy a digital deluxe edition or a limited collector's edition in order to get your hands on the new content. This is especially rewarding for long-time Sonic fans who would love to dive back into the adventures of Shadow without having to pay any extra coin to experience it.
The DLC will include three stages for Shadow to play through, along with the ability to replay 10 of the modern stages from recent Sonic The Hedgehog games.
I'm sure some gamers will be happy to play as Shadow again, since he hasn't made an appearance since Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Before that he starred in his own game, Shadow The Hedgehog. We'll finally get a bit more backstory and character development surrounding Shadow, as well as some insight into the new villain. It's also good that Sega decided to give away the DLC for free.
Those who do pre-order the Digital Bonus Edition of the game will receive a separate bonus in the form of a Shadow costume and an additional Sega character costume pack, likely to be used for the character customization feature.
The game features multiple playable characters in the main campaign mode, including new Sonic, retro Sonic, and the player's own custom-created character.
The stages will be broken down into various segments involving the different characters, along with the new-school 3D platforming segments focused on speed and rapid-paced reflexes, the old-school segments involving side-scrolling platforming, and a mixture of the two.
The game centers around the cross-dimensional gameplay plot that was introduced in Sonic Generations and has been a theme throughout some of the newer games where Sonic and his buddies travel back and forth through time as well as to different timelines within the Sonic universe. Even Sonic Mania had the blue hedgehog and his buddies moving back and forth through time across the original trilogy of 16-bit games on the Sega Genesis while sprinkling in a few new stages as well.
Sega hasn't showcased a whole lot of gameplay for Sonic Forces but so far we've seen various classic stages re-imagined for today's generation of game consoles.
You can look for the new 3D platformer to arrive on home consoles and PC starting this fall.
