Sonic Prime producer Logan McPherson has described fitting Shadow in the show as a "challenge", as his character comes with a lot of restrictions. Even the invention of the shatterverse wasn't enough to make Shadow's inclusion any easier, as he's destined to always be the edgy boy we know and love.
This comes from our interview with McPherson and new Sonic voice actor, Deven Mack. Here, McPherson explains how the team worked under these constraints, and how that influenced Shadow's inclusion in the show.
“Shadow is Shadow. There's no changing Shadow. He is the ultimate life form. That's the way he is," McPherson tells us. "The challenge was how do we fit shadow in and have some fun?"
It's also bad news for anyone who likes to see Shadow get along with his cheerier counterpart. “His relationship with Sonic…that's something that will never change. They will always remain at an arm's distance. They'll always be rivals.”
Once they'd accepted these limitations, however, it seemed to work out. "When you have a character that has such a defined description, it's fun to think about what are the kinds of situations we can thrust him in knowing that he's going to be the way he is," says McPherson. "How can we create funny, interesting or dramatic situations that he can play in?”
This is not the first time that we've heard about Shadow being a pain to write for. As we reported back in September, Sonic Boom TV show writers shed some light on the subject, revealing that Sega gave them "so many notes and restrictions" about Shadow that it was easier to just not include him.
"Sega did not consider him a comedy character. They told us we could use him, but he was not to be making any jokes," said Sonic Boom's Alan Denton. "So to work around that, the joke became the very fact that Shadow is completely humourless. So edgy, all the time."
Given what McPherson told us, it seems that this is still the case. So don't expect any fun Shadow adventures with his best buddy Sonic anytime soon.