Sonic Forces - Story Trailer (English and Japanese)

[Kuzu]

13 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

I thought the idea would be that Infinite brings her back...and threatens to kill her again to mox Shadow up. Even a person who has moved on wouldn't be able to say no to that type of hostage situation.

It'd definitely be a way to mox Shadow up without regressing his character.

This sounds unnecessarily dark, what the hell.

Even if that was the case, how would Infinite even pull that off?

[StaticMania]

He's not a master of the time stream...so I don't think he could.

 

But if he could and knows that he shouldn't due to paradox, that's how it'd be really effective...

[Jango]

I think despite the fact that the world has gone to shit, Shadow wouldn't join Knuckles' resistence at will. 

My money is on "all the returning villains are illusions created by Infinite/Eggman".

Chaos? Impossible to return. Zavok? VERY unlikely. Metal Sonic? Probably the only real villain. Or not, who knows? 

I think once the real Shadow find out there's a FAKER causing havok out there, he will step up and defeat it himself. Only then he might join Sonic in the fight. And he might just do it out of ego, imagine he saying something like "Having trouble, Sonic?".

[Salamander]

If we take brainwashing out of the equation, Eggman might have captured the real Shadow somehow, giving him free rein to use an impostor constructed by Infinite.  Zavok could be coerced into joining Eggman again by recovering the Cacophonic Conch, but if you can just create illusionary impostors with similar abilities, then why bother?  When Metal Sonic appears in the trailer, he actually glitches out so badly that he flashes out of existence for a moment, which seems like a pretty strong indication that he's not really there.

If Infinite (and by extension, the Phantom Ruby) really does have powers based on illusions (of a magical degree of flexibility, but false nonetheless), it might actually be that Infinite is considerably less powerful than he appears to be.  His supposed Sonic-exceeding speed could just be him disguising his true position, for instance.  The idea that he's all talk has some appeal.

[Forte-Metallix]

1 minute ago, Jango said:

I think despite the fact that the world has gone to shit, Shadow wouldn't join Knuckles' resistence at will. 

My money is on "all the returning villains are illusions created by Infinite/Eggman".

Chaos? Impossible to return. Zavok? VERY unlikely. Metal Sonic? Probably the only real villain. Or not, who knows? 

I think once the real Shadow find out there's a FAKER causing havok out there, he will step up and defeat it himself. 

Technically not true.

At the end of Sonic Adventure, Chaos, Tikal, and their Chao friends supposedly returned to their pocket dimension inside the Master Emerald- But they can leave it whenever they want, such as in Sonic Battle, where Chaos comes to challenge Emerl. (Knuckles even says that Chaos appears "during times of great crisis.")

[Jango]

OK, so Chaos can return... But at will? Like he just woke up in the moring and decided to take a walk outside the Master Emerald. Unless he's mindcontrolled, why would Chaos go rogue? Didn't Super Sonic and Tikal "saved" him? 

[Forte-Metallix]

6 minutes ago, Jango said:

OK, so Chaos can return... But at will? Like he just woke up in the moring and decided to take a walk outside the Master Emerald. Unless he's mindcontrolled, why would Chaos go rogue?

I agree that's it's completely out of character for him to just suddenly turn evil again (same with Shadow), which is why I'm with the fan theories that either:

A ) They're illusions created by Infinite

or 

B ) Eggman used Infinite's reality-warping powers to pull them from points in time in which they were obedient to him.

The promotional material even acknowledges how bizarre it is that Shadow and Chaos would go along with this, so something's obviously wrong here.

[The Deleter]

Shadow could be infiltrating Eggman's army undercover to figure out what Eggman is capable of, what infinite's deal is, what the Phantom ruby is, etc.

It's not that complicated...

[Jango]

Shadow can be a sneaky-sneak? Man imagine if he really is playing spy and Eggman call out his disguise and capture him? What a great Eggman moment that would be. "-MUAHAHA, you actually though you could fool ME, Shadow?". 

Now that would be awesome.

Still think everybody is an illusion tho'. ;(

[Meta77]

24 minutes ago, Jango said:

OK, so Chaos can return... But at will? Like he just woke up in the moring and decided to take a walk outside the Master Emerald. Unless he's mindcontrolled, why would Chaos go rogue? Didn't Super Sonic and Tikal "saved" him? 

Again sonic battle. He can leave when he wants. Its not like he is forced  he just has no reason most the time living in peace

[caseykz]

Eggman doesn't need a conch. He has Infinite now.

From what little we know of the story, pecking order is Infinite>Sonic>Zavok. Zavok is way out of Infinite's league. He won't challenge Eggman, at least not while Infinite is loyal.

[Meta77]

So how about boss order. I think metal may best the first but who after him for me I'm guessing chaos would be next than zavok them shadow . Eggman . Infinite

[Red Hot Jack]

Metal Sonic is first, fought by Sonic and the Avatar, you can see in the trailer that both of them are at the bridge where the fight takes place; Eggman + Egg Dragoon fought by Classic Sonic; Chaos fought by Sonic, Zavok fought by Avatar, Shadow fought by Classic Sonic, Eggman again fought by Sonic, Infinite fought by Sonic and Avatar, Eggman with the Phantom Ruby fought by both Super Sonics.

[Shadowlax]

3 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

This sounds unnecessarily dark, what the hell.

Even if that was the case, how would Infinite even pull that off?

Also I don't think eggman would allow that. 

Eggman is a person who wants to take over the world but he has a soft spot for a couple things, his favorite robots, amusement parks and casino's,chao, and his family. I don't think he would even allow infinite to screw with his family

[DonWaffleleven]

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Shadow could be infiltrating Eggman's army undercover to figure out what Eggman is capable of, what infinite's deal is, what the Phantom ruby is, etc.

It's not that complicated...

Was gonna say this exactly. Shadow could be a double agent feeding info to the resistance.

[The Deleter]

Just now, DonWaffleleven said:

Was gonna say this exactly. Shadow could be a double agent feeding info to the resistance.

Eh, I doubt that'll be the case. Modern Sonic's Park Avenue stage consists of the resistance and Sonic searching for and trying to contact Shadow, and since Infinite's cutscene takes place in the same area, as well as his reveal trailer, it's probably where they learn that Shadow has joined Eggman and Infinite in the first place.

If this were the old Sonic canon, the most likely case would be that Shadow would be working for GUN specifically, and leaving Sonic and Co. out of it, but since they seem to be gone for the most part, it's probably Shadow acting like the lone wolf he typically is, dealing with threats in his own way 'n stuff.

[Shadowlax]

10 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

Eh, I doubt that'll be the case. Modern Sonic's Park Avenue stage consists of the resistance and Sonic searching for and trying to contact Shadow, and since Infinite's cutscene takes place in the same area, as well as his reveal trailer, it's probably where they learn that Shadow has joined Eggman and Infinite in the first place.

If this were the old Sonic canon, the most likely case would be that Shadow would be working for GUN specifically, and leaving Sonic and Co. out of it, but since they seem to be gone for the most part, it's probably Shadow acting like the lone wolf he typically is, dealing with threats in his own way 'n stuff.

There isn't any old sonic canon... that's the same canon

[Diogenes]

2 hours ago, Forte-Metallix said:

B ) Eggman used Infinite's reality-warping powers to pull them from points in time in which they were obedient to him.

Here's the thing, though: Shadow never was loyal to Eggman. He was just using him in SA2.

[The Deleter]

1 minute ago, Shadowlax said:

There isn't any old sonic canon... that's the same canon

I mean old as in how the world used to be handled.

If GUN ever appears in Forces, they're appearing in Forces, but so far they've been absent from Sonic's lore since 06/Dark Brotherhood, as has Shadow's ties with them.

[Ratcicle King]

2 hours ago, Forte-Metallix said:

Eggman used Infinite's reality-warping powers to pull them from points in time in which they were obedient to him.

Here's the thing, Chaos, Zavok and Shadow were never really obedient to Eggman.

However, these three do share one thing in common: They all wanted the world to suffer for injustices that happened to them. Infinite could very well be bringing them from a point where they were at the height of their hate, or just messing with their memories to bring them back to their state of mind they had in their debuts.

[Forte-Metallix]

6 minutes ago, Ratcicle King said:

Here's the thing, Chaos, Zavok and Shadow were never really obedient to Eggman.

However, these three do share one thing in common: They all wanted the world to suffer for injustices that happened to them. Infinite could very well be bringing them from a point where they were at the height of their hate, or just messing with their memories to bring them back to their state of mind they had in their debuts.

Well then, either Infinite has warped reality to make them all genuinely loyal, he's given Eggman some sort of leash to keep them all in line, or they really are just illusions.

[Guest]

I think everyone is looking far too deeply into why Shadow et al seem to be working with Eggman. It's fairly obvious that Infinite's just grabbed them from their respective timelines when they were allied against Sonic, and whether or not they were "truly loyal" to Eggman or not is not likely to be a distinction or intricacy that SonicTeam care about. At some point, they were all "baddies", that's it. That's all.

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Stephenb19 said:

 and whether or not they were "truly loyal" to Eggman or not is not likely to be a distinction or intricacy that SonicTeam care about. At some point, they were all "baddies", that's it. That's all.

We can talk and not like that premise, especially because the character in question actually has you know... an actual character arc and narrative. Along with the people on multiple occasions telling us to "pay attention to the story " specifically in regards to shadow one of those people being iizuka himself. And we are discussing that

Whats your problem?

[Whatever the WhoCares]

I think all of them aside from Infinite and maybe Zavok are illusions. Zavok might be helping Eggman because after Lost World he perceives Eggman to be an easier foe than Sonic, so he'll rally the Deadly Six and overthrow Eggman later. Any character that we've seen glitch out definitely isn't real. The weird thing is, that includes Metal Sonic, whom we know is a boss character. Metal seems to attack with his cubes, thus keeping up the illusion by not touching Sonic. But then, how do we beat him? Wouldn't any and every attack just clip right through?

[NoKaine]

5 hours ago, Captain Metallix said:

If I was to wager a guess as to why Shadow is where he is in Forces, I'd guess it might go like this:

> Shadow was originally a Resistance member, perhaps working alongside Rouge and Omega.

> Something happens (maybe Rouge and/or Omega are captured) that causes Shadow to attempt a solo mission.

> The mission goes wrong, Eggman captures Shadow (possibly with the help of Infinite) and most likely brainwashes him.

> Shadow becomes a part of Eggman's elite mooks, alongside Metal, Chaos and Zavok throughout the game.

> By the end of the game, Shadow might be 'saved' and (re?)join the Resistance.

I'd honestly be surprised if they did anything more than this, since I doubt he's a villain for any more of a reason than "we need a Sonic vs. Shadow fight!"

The idea that Omega (who hates Eggman) and Rouge (who wouldn't work with Eggman) were captured would be itself enough for Shadow to work for Eggman and that wouldn't be a bad idea at all. Especially since we know they're in the game but they haven't actually appeared yet.

It's a sympathetic motive, it's in-character enough for Shadow to do, yadda yadda.