This being the first piece of concept art ever made for the film, and the hint at the tone of the film from the two trailers we’ve gotten, tells me that this is going to be a bit different than the previous two entries and something pretty special.
I wonder if this could end up sort of being a Spider-Man: NWH type thing, where maybe the first act or the first half of the film is what we’ve typically come to expect from the series, but then at a certain point something significant happens, causing a shift in tone and direction into something a bit more emotional and dramatic. I don’t know, just some thing about a few of the pieces of dialogue we get from Shadow and the few serious moments we get in the trailers suggests this could be aiming a bit higher. I don’t think they’ve completely abandoned what they’ve done before, but it just feels like there’s a bit of a different vibe and energy to this.
Even just thinking back to the marketing for the first two films, and the marketing for this, Sonic 3 just feels…different (I know, I’m being redundant, but I can’t help it.), like some other element has been thrown into the mix. Though, considering who Shadow is and his relationship to the other characters and how he affects the world around him, that’s pretty appropriate.