The timeline of story events is critical if you’re making a video game series, as in one with multiple entries that revolve around the same batch of characters. After all, each game leads into the next one, and you can build off that. Plus, you’ll need to keep track of things so that you don’t make things seem repetitive or use a character in one way when in the previous game, they did something else. For example, Sonic the Hedgehog, his games, at one point, were very easy to follow in terms of story. First, there was just Sonic and Eggman. Then Tails came in Knuckles, Metal Sonic, Shadow, Rogue, Amy, and so on.
But over time, things got messier, especially when specific titles took things to different levels, different worlds, future timelines, and so on. Oh, and there was Sonic ’06, where a human princess kissed Sonic in a “totally plutonic way.” Yeah, sure, Jan.
Anyway, the more the games continued, and the more that these shenanigans continued, the more fans got confused about what was canon, wasn’t canon, and where it all took place. Finally, on the November 4th episode of Bumblekast, we got an answer. Well, kind of.
Sonic game and comic writer Ian Flynn and co-host Kyle Crouse talked about the timelines and tried to clarify that the OG Sonic and the “modern Sonic” from the recent games are the same character. That would mean that claims from fans that particular titles in the franchise took place in another dimension were false. However, their arguments don’t account for specific elements of Sonic Mania and other titles. Even the co-host couldn’t help but call out the dev team for this:
“Inevitably in comes Sega, and boom, your fan timeline is completely eradicated. I understand the impulse to want to make an order of things. But there is no order in Sonic – only chaos.”
That’s more accurate than he realizes because the IDW comics also allegedly take place after or concurrently with the main games.
Then, there’s the insanity that is Archie Sonic. These long-running comics have been going since the early 90s and don’t run alongside the games at all. If anything, they’re more concurrent with the animated series from that same decade. Those comics are so insane that Sonic’s speed is “incalculable,” he’s been defined as a god, and some of his allies in Tails and Knuckles have had stories that are so insane we won’t speak of them.
In short, there is no timeline, so try and figure it out.
Source: YouTube
