Sonic Fans Dub 2024 The "Year Of Shadow"

Shadow fans, we’re so back. After years of being on the sidelines and kept out of newSonic the Hedgehogreleases entirely, Shadow is back in the spotlight, starring in three different titles this year.

With the third Sonic movie, the Sonic Prime finale, and now,Sonic x Shadow Generations, it’s going to be a great year for fans of the anti-hero. In fact, it’s going to be so great that some are already calling 2024 The Year of Shadow the Hedgehog, since we’ve been waiting for him to return for so long.

That name isn’t official, but it calls back to official branding used in theMarioseries - remember the Year of Luigi? That ran from 2013 to 2014 and marked the guy’s 30th anniversary in the Mario games. It also gave us a bunch of Luigi-centric games, which is what Shadow fans are expecting from 2024.

It’s easy to see why hopes are so high. Shadow is going to play a huge part in the next Sonic movie, with his discovery teased at the very end of the last film. Then, he’s second only to Sonic in theNetflixseries, Sonic Prime, which had its final season drop in January.

While Shadow isn’t playable in Sonic Superstars,a new update will add a Shadow cosmetic for Sonic, so he’skind ofthere too. It will drop on February 15.

But of course, the biggest and perhaps most exciting news of the year is that Shadow is getting his own campaign in the Sonic Generations remaster. Sonic x Shadow Generations will include levels from his appearances in games like Sonic Adventure 2 and his own spin-off title.

However, it being the year of Shadow means that we’re probably going to see the poor guy get re-traumatised over and over again. If the stories stay anywhere close to the source material, it’s going to be rough.

In fact,this is something that Sonic fans are very much looking forward to. If both the Generations remaster and the upcoming film stay accurate to Shadow’s origins, then we’re going to see Maria get killed in front of Shadow twice in one year. While we can probably expect this to be toned down in the film, it would be strange to see the games make such a huge departure from his story.

In any case, Shadow fans can watch the entirety of Sonic Prime now. We’ll have to wait until later in the year for Sonic x Shadow Generations and the Sonic 3 movie.