SEGA Announce Shadow the Hedgehog News

Talking about Shadow the Hedgehog and his gun may still leave a bitter taste in the mouth, but at least we now know a little more about it courtesy of the gameâ??s official announcement.

Deemed a Sonic the Hedgehog "spin-off", Shadow the Hedgehog is currently in development at SEGA Studios USA (ahhhh) under the careful eye of Takashi Iizuka Lead Developer Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2/Battle and Sonic Heroes.

The game worryingly makes boastful claims of allowing players to collect an "arsenal of weapons", vehicles and objects to speed through 50 unique missions. Hinted at within previous titles, Shadow the Hedgehog finds himself tormented by a dark past, struggling to discover his true identity (we are still talking about a Sonic game here?).

Caught between a complex battle between aliens, the G.U.N. army and Dr Eggman, Shadow discovers that he may well be the very element that tips the scales between good and evil forever (we can't beâ?¦).

Is he an android created by Dr. Eggman? Is he the original Shadow simply suffering from amnesia? Or is there an even more sinister explanation? â?“ (Or is this a Sonic game???)

Again trying to keep a level head, the game does make an intriguing claim of allowing gamers to decide the fate of Shadow by choosing various routes through the game in order to reveal fragments of his past, leading onto multiple endings that reflect the critical choices.

Bizarrely the announcement makes no reference to format, although given the multi-format release of Sonic Heroes, we'd expect to see Shadow invading all of the home consoles.

Weâ??re eager to see whether Iizuka-san can pull off what has to be an unbelievable prospect, but it does lead to the question as to what Yuji Naka and his team are working on back in Japan â?“ with Sonic's debut on the DS in hand and development progressing on Phantasy Star Universe, surely the Next-Gen debut of Sonic can't be far behindâ?¦