One of my favourite parts of Sonic x Shadow Generations, released last week, is the wealth of music, stories, and art in the game’s Collection. Acquired hidden emblems throughout each stage can be used as keys to unlock treasure chests throughout the White Space central hub zone and, with a quick shift of location, Shadow can check out his history through some wonderful artwork.
It’s a huge privilege, therefore, to be able to introduce the below sketches from Sonic Team’s Kazuyuki Hoshino, from the development of the Shadow the Hedgehog game. Before this, Hoshino worked as an artist and character designer on multiple games such as Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Heroes.
Shadow the Hedgehog as a character was first introduced in 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2 as the ‘Ultimate Lifeform’, before appearing in his own standalone game in 2005 where he notably wields a gun. Hoshino worked as art director on both projects. With further details provided by Hoshino, the below sketches reveal early concepts for not only Shadow’s design, but the proposed weaponry, and bad guy Black Doom. Please enjoy!
“I wanted to create a deep, mature story suited to backstory. Shadow was created with the idea of him being a lead character and not just part of a cast of characters,” Hoshino tells Eurogamer of working on the Shadow the Hedgehog game, where that promise was fulfilled.