Lots of people on Reddit and YouTube think the Chaos Emeralds have been removed from the 3D games canon

[StarWarsSonic]

The chaos emeralds haven’t been mentioned or used in Sonic Lost World and especially in Sonic Forces.

People mainly seem to bring up the fact that it’s a little stupid that with the world having been taken over that the Resistance wouldn’t work on tracking down the chaos emeralds as leverage.

Yes only hedgehogs can go super form and Sonic was in prison and Infinite had managed to get Shadow out of the way for a while but what about Silver!? He was around with the Resistance and he could have turned super form if they found all the emeralds. 
Plus even with Sonic and Shadow our of the scene for the time being, having the Chaos Emeralds would still be a good thing to have for the future.

 

Also what about the Master Emerald? Surely Knuckles would be guarding that? But no instead he is leading the Resistance and doesn’t mention the Master Emerald or his island once.

 

Two possibilities 

1) Just a rushed game and Sonic Team forgot about the Emeralds 

2) Maybe Sonic Team have decided to remove the Emeralds from 3D canon and decided to leave the Emeralds for just the 2D games. 
 

How would everyone feel if Sonic Team decided to drop the Chaos Emeralds from the 3D games?

[Tracker_TD]

It's pretty clear they haven't forgot about them, they just don't need every single story to hinge on the Emeralds. Neither of your possibilities are accurate.

[Shade Vortex]

People have this really bad habit of basing the entire lore implications of something on a few games' lack of something. It would be like thinking The Master Emerald doesn't exist because we haven't seen Knuckles defend it in a long time... but then Mania happened. There very clearly still are the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald, which are still very important lore elements in the franchise. It's just that like was already pointed out, not every game needs to use the same plot element over and over again...

[Diogenes]

Lots of people on Reddit and Youtube are not very smart.

There's been all of two main series games since the last time the emeralds were part of the story. Even if Generations' story was very thin, the Sonics still canonically recovered the emeralds and went Super to fight the Eggmen and the Time Eater. Something not showing up for two games isn't reason to start panicking over it being removed entirely.

The emeralds did still show up in Lost World and Forces; as non-canon extras, yes, but it shows that they aren't abandoning them entirely.

Mania had the emeralds. Not only that, but the game's Super Sonic "True Ending" is what ties the game into Forces, so they can't simply be written off as non-canon rewards there.

IDW Sonic, a comic which effectively branches off from the game canon post-Forces, still has the emeralds. While it is a separate continuity from the games, given that Sega's more hands-on approach and its more direct ties to the game canon, if they wanted the emeralds gone from the series' identity, they wouldn't have allowed them here.

Now I can't tell you why they left the emeralds out of Forces' story, despite how sensible it would've been for the heroes to try to throw a Super form at the bad guys. Maybe they wanted to try to commit to the (relatively) gritty war/resistance aesthetic and didn't want the problems solved by a glowing super-being. Maybe they didn't think it would be thematically appropriate for the Sonics to go Super in the end and leave the avatar character lagging behind given the game's focus on Modern Sonic and the avatar's teamwork, and didn't want to let the avatar go Super given that they've already committed to only a few characters being able to do that. Maybe they're still just tired of when every game in the series would focus on collecting the emeralds and end with a Super Sonic fight. But regardless, from everything around the game, I see no reason to worry about the emeralds just up and disappearing from the series' canon.

[thumbs13]

Things can go unmentioned for a game and still exist. I feel like this doesn't have to be said. The emeralds weren't in Forces because they wanted us to believe there was no way the resistance could win. That simple.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Sonic wasn't in Tails Adventure, so therefore Sonic no longer exists.

[Rabbitearsblog]

They probably didn't featured the Chaos Emeralds that much in recent games because they wanted to tell a different story with Sonic.  But that doesn't mean that the Chaos Emeralds are written out of continuity.  That's like saying that just because Sonic didn't show up in games like "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine" or the Tails spin off games, that he is out of the games' continuity (although that can't happen since Sonic is the main character of the franchise).  Not all Sonic games need the Chaos Emeralds to be a focal point in the story. Sometimes they tell a Sonic story by using some other items for the plot like rings or something like that.

[Meta77]

Some sonic fans be it here or reddit or even twitter can be a wild bunch. Theories and rumors galor from the smallest things. But that said the Chaos emeralds are not needed every game and more than likely sega knew they were writing themselves in a hole. EVERY game can not use them as a means to get out of every final issue. From perfect chaos, final hazard, devil doom, etc. Take that and no final boss really seems to know how to use them it gets boring when every final fight is just sonic ramming into things as super sonic. If they are to be in the games more they need to make the super emeralds canon again and make a threat that requires something more than super sonic. otherwise no villian by the end feels like a real threat if sonic in base form can beat them.

[PaperSonic]

I never got why people made such a big deal about the lack of the Emeralds of all things. It just screams "we've run out of things to complain about Forces, but we need to beat that Dead Horse, I guess".

Especially since I imagine they must be a pain in the ass to write around. You have these 7 gems of infinite power. This means you have to constantly send characters on McGuffin hunts, but not too many hunts since there's only 7. SA1 is the most obvious offender of this. Or you can have characters pull the Emeralds out of their asses so that by the endgame all 7 are gathered. Meanwhile, their "infinite power" means any plot point can be resolved by "use the Chaos Emeralds".

Much like they do with the Master Emerald, they decide to just ignore the Emeralds when convenient.