Voice actor Jason Griffith says he once recorded “hours” of content featuring Shadow the Hedgehog dropping the F-bomb.
Griffith spoke about his time voicing the Sonic character during a conversation with GameLuster at MomoCon. The actor says that when developing 2005’s Shadow the Hedgehog, Sega was, at one point, shooting for a “Mature” rating with the ESRB and asked him to record different versions for many of Shadow’s lines. Griffith says that in these M-rated takes, “they had me say f*** in every single line.”
"It was just every sentence, I would be yelling ‘Sonic, give me that f***ing Chaos Emerald!’ or something like that," Griffith added. "I had no idea what was going on but I just went with it, and I had fun. There’s a hard drive somewhere with hours of recordings of Shadow yelling f*** at Tails and Sonic and stuff."
Sega typically keeps curse words out of its anthropomorphic mascots’ mouths. Sonic is a series suited for children with one major exception: Shadow the Hedgehog. The spinoff game sees Sonic’s edgy other half using a variety of firearms as players navigate a choose-your-own-adventure-style campaign. It’s a darker take on the Sonic universe that even sees Shadow saying things like “damn” just before threatening to send Eggman to “hell.” It’s a lot, but apparently the ambivalent hedgehog almost used some other choice words, too.
Alas, Shadow the Hedgehog wound up with an E10+ rating when it eventually launched for Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. This is the first we’re hearing of Shadow’s more colorful vocabulary, and it’s unclear if those recordings are truly out there somewhere or if they will ever see the light of day.
IGN has asked Sega for comment.
Shadow is having quite the moment, as Sega has gone as far as to dub 2024 the “year of Shadow.” The character, who first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast, is getting the spotlight in more ways than one. He’ll make his theatrical debut in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (with voicework from Keanu Reeves) when it premieres later this year. There’s also Sonic x Shadow Generations, a remaster featuring extra red-and-black-hedgehog-themed content that is set to release this fall.
Meanwhile, we didn’t love Shadow’s standalone game when it first released in 2005. We called it “bad” in our 4.7 review, saying that its speedy gameplay “doesn’t make up for the game's long list of shortcomings, from stupid level design, unrefined controls and useless gunplay to disappointingly outdated graphics.”
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
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