Official Sonic Timeline

[time gear]

I didn't see a topic for this already, so I decided to post one. Recently SEGA Japan decided to put out an official timeline for the Sonic series. It doesn't list out every single game, but it does cover most of the heavy hitters. In my opinion, the most interesting detail is the confirmation that Sonic Mania and Sonic Superstars take place before Sonic 4. The translation software on my web browser is a bit iffy, but it also appears to address the Sonic 06 timeline split while also showing when in the timeline the events of Sonic 06 would have taken place on the timeline despite them not happening for the mainline cast.

 

[Jammin']

This is probably loosely off-topic but I think it's on-topic enough.

I don't like how SEGA is trying to act like all the Sonic games are connected. It's such a facade.
There's a staggering lack of cohesion with pre-Ian Flynn games. Some games loosely tie into each other, but parts of the grand narrative get lost in the sauce countless times.

Like, I won't deny the connections between SA1, SA2, Heroes, and Shadow. That's probably the most continuous these games get, but I still find the moon rotating is a stupid and half-assed explanation for why they didn't want an exploded moon in games after SA2.
I also do not think games like Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, or Sonic Lost World were ever made with the intention of fitting into previously established continuity.

Furthermore, the world's geography literally changes several times over the course of the games. That's not supposed to happen. I think
South Island was known for moving across the sea and stuff but that's what's supposed to make it special. If all continents are drifting everywhere, South Island wouldn't be notable.
Speaking of South Island, it was also said that it was the home of the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 1's Japanese manual IIRC.
But then Sonic 2 came out saying Westside Island was their home, and then Sonic 3 decided to give that title to Angel Island too.

I am convinced many of these games weren't made with a continuous story in mind (barring references) and trying to fit it all together is such an impossible task without making arbitrary connections no casual person would even guess to make.

If they want a cohesive universe, they should do a (soft) reboot if they don't want to shift toward self-contained stories like with so many games before.


Addendum: Don't mistake me for someone wanting Sonic to lack an over-arching storyline. I actually really like stuff like that.
I just don't like treating what at the very least seem like one-shots as pieces to a larger puzzle.

 

[eggbreaker.exe]

Furthermore, the world's geography literally changes several times over the course of the games. That's not supposed to happen. I think

imo this wasn't a problem until Sega literally showed us what Earth looked like in universe in Unleashed and then immediately walked it back. None of the "country" locations (and i say country very loosely since only one of the locations is confirmed to be an actual country and not just a town) in that game make sense anyway save for Holoska being in the extreme north.

 

[time gear]

The map in Unleashed is even stated by Tails himself to just be a map he made for Sonic to make use of. We're not literally looking at the actual planet. I wouldn't be surprised if he just put vague blotches in the place of continents because that's all that was needed for their purposes at the time. It wasn't meant to be a super accurate continental map, they just needed to know where to go to reach the Gaia Temples on each broken piece of the planet. Even when we see Earth from space in Unleashed's cutscenes, those could be non-canon appearances on purpose to keep consistency with Tails's map. Adding credence to this idea is that Earth was just Earth both before and after this; City Escape and Radical Highway quite literally takes place in their version of San Fransisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, and you can see the Great Lakes outside the window of the Space Colony Arc in the opening cutscene of Shadow Generations.

There's definitely differences to our world; unique cities such as Westopolis and Empire City, different nations, surreal locations and architectural design, islands that don't exist in our world, etc. but generally speaking their Earth is shaped like our Earth.

Something you have to get used to when it comes to large scale fiction series in general is the presence of plot holes and retcons. For instance, with Sonic they were originally marketing Mania as a split in the timeline after Generations in which Classic Sonic type games could continue indefinitely. More recently now that they're taking lore more seriously, they've merged it back into the main timeline through a retcon. Other large scale series worked on by many different people over the course of decades have similar issues. Even stories largely written by one person aren't perfect and are bound to get the occasional plot hole and retcons will be necessary for the current story being told to be the most satisfying it can be. The fact of the matter is that earlier parts of a franchise tend to not be made with the long term in mind, they're telling the story that the writers want to tell right now, and that can be inconvenient for the writing of later stories. Plot holes are bound to happen and retcons are a necessary part of smoothing over earlier problems with the writing and keeping everything generally consistent in the present tense.

The point I'm getting at is that Sonic really isn't special in regards to the games not being written for the purpose of just telling a story at the time and not worrying too much about how it will fit in to future entries. Franchises grow and evolve and get ironed out over the course of their life span, so fretting about every little detail that doesn't make sense is just needless worrying. They're currently faced with the impossible task of making everything fit together, but they don't need to do a perfect job of it. All they need to do is establish the vague sense of continuity with the occasional retcon here and there to smooth over plotholes and general audiences will be satisfied. We all know it is just fiction, so it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be fun. The alternative would be to reboot the entire franchise so that everything could be completely rewritten into one perfectly cohesive storyline, but really that wouldn't be worth the time, money, and effort when most people will be perfectly fine with the patch job they're doing here. We might expect some lore changes here and there in future re-releases of old games similar to the Sonic Generations script rewrite, but nothing so drastic as a full reboot.

 

[Jammin']

The map in Unleashed is even stated by Tails himself to just be a map he made for Sonic to make use of. We're not literally looking at the actual planet. I wouldn't be surprised if he just put vague blotches in the place of continents because that's all that was needed for their purposes at the time. It wasn't meant to be a super accurate continental map, they just needed to know where to go to reach the Gaia Temples on each broken piece of the planet. Even when we see Earth from space in Unleashed's cutscenes, those could be non-canon appearances on purpose to keep consistency with Tails's map.

If we're going down that path, it would be a lot more efficient if Tails just represented the planet with a sphere and put the locations they need to go to wherever they need to be on said sphere. It's way too detailed not to be how the planet looks.
I guess I can understand the planet's appearance, but I definitely don't understand why a skybox of outer space was needed.
There's way too much flair in the menu for it to be "all that was needed for their purposes at the time."
However, I do get the point you're making there.

Adding credence to this idea is that Earth was just Earth both before and after this; City Escape and Radical Highway quite literally takes place in their version of San Fransisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, and you can see the Great Lakes outside the window of the Space Colony Arc in the opening cutscene of Shadow Generations.

There's definitely differences to our world; unique cities such as Westopolis and Empire City, different nations, surreal locations and architectural design, islands that don't exist in our world, etc. but generally speaking their Earth is shaped like our Earth.

Those are just similar locations. Saying City Escape or Radical Highway take place in San Fransisco is just an assumption.
We actually don't know how similar Sonic's world is to ours on a geographic level as we don't have a reliable way to view it. Most parallels to our Earth shouldn't be used as proof for Sonic's world being Earth but different.
As much as you can say Sonic's world is just a variation of Earth because of the aforementioned stages,
I can say Sonic's world is completely unique because of the classic game islands, the stages in Sonic Heroes, the blocky trees in Sonic Lost World, among other things.

There's an equal likelihood for either scenario. Schrodinger's Sonic's World.

Something you have to get used to when it comes to large scale fiction series in general is the presence of plot holes and retcons. For instance, with Sonic they were originally marketing Mania as a split in the timeline after Generations in which Classic Sonic type games could continue indefinitely. More recently now that they're taking lore more seriously, they've merged it back into the main timeline through a retcon. Other large scale series worked on by many different people over the course of decades have similar issues. Even stories largely written by one person aren't perfect and are bound to get the occasional plot hole and retcons will be necessary for the current story being told to be the most satisfying it can be. The fact of the matter is that earlier parts of a franchise tend to not be made with the long term in mind, they're telling the story that the writers want to tell right now, and that can be inconvenient for the writing of later stories. Plot holes are bound to happen and retcons are a necessary part of smoothing over earlier problems with the writing and keeping everything generally consistent in the present tense.

The point I'm getting at is that Sonic really isn't special in regards to the games not being written for the purpose of just telling a story at the time and not worrying too much about how it will fit in to future entries. Franchises grow and evolve and get ironed out over the course of their life span, so fretting about every little detail that doesn't make sense is just needless worrying. They're currently faced with the impossible task of making everything fit together, but they don't need to do a perfect job of it. All they need to do is establish the vague sense of continuity with the occasional retcon here and there to smooth over plotholes and general audiences will be satisfied. We all know it is just fiction, so it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be fun. The alternative would be to reboot the entire franchise so that everything could be completely rewritten into one perfectly cohesive storyline, but really that wouldn't be worth the time, money, and effort when most people will be perfectly fine with the patch job they're doing here. We might expect some lore changes here and there in future re-releases of old games similar to the Sonic Generations script rewrite, but nothing so drastic as a full reboot.

I don't have gripes with plotholes or retcons. I have gripes with taking one-shots and acting like they fit into the grander story.

 

[time gear]

Those are just similar locations. Saying City Escape or Radical Highway take place in San Fransisco is just an assumption.
We actually don't know how similar Sonic's world is to ours on a geographic level as we don't have a reliable way to view it. Most parallels to our Earth shouldn't be used as proof for Sonic's world being Earth but different.
As much as you can say Sonic's world is just a variation of Earth because of the aforementioned stages,
I can say Sonic's world is completely unique because of the classic game islands, the stages in Sonic Heroes, the blocky trees in Sonic Lost World, among other things.

There's an equal likelihood for either scenario. Schrodinger's Sonic's World.

You can't really deny that Shadow was looking down at North America in the Shadow Generations opening cutscene. It's too explicitly that to be anything else.

I don't have gripes with plotholes or retcons. I have gripes with taking one-shots and acting like they fit into the grander story.

I think you're considering the games to be more one shots than they really are. There's always been a vague sense of interconnectivity, we've known the entire time that certain games take place after others. Rush is after the Advance games, Lost World is after Generations, etc. They don't have to make direct references for us to know they exist in a chronological timeline.

 

[Jammin']

You can't really deny that Shadow was looking down at North America in the Shadow Generations opening cutscene. It's too explicitly that to be anything else.

Okay, that's fair.
But that's still quite weak considering how we see Sonic's world in other games like Sonic Colors and it does not resemble Earth very much. (Actually, I think the intro uses a photo of Earth, but Terminal Velocity uses a unique texture.)
The planet has the chance to look completely different in the next game like it has a few times in the past. Once we see it more often it'll be a safer bet.

I think you're considering the games to be more one shots than they really are. There's always been a vague sense of interconnectivity, we've known the entire time that certain games take place after others. Rush is after the Advance games, Lost World is after Generations, etc. They don't have to make direct references for us to know they exist in a chronological timeline.

Those games are bad examples because they exist very well in a vacuum. Yeah, they probably do take place after those games, but they don't have to if you ask me.

 

[time gear]

Those games are bad examples because they exist very well in a vacuum. Yeah, they probably do take place after those games, but they don't have to if you ask me.

They take place in a vacuum in the same way newer entries of most game series do. You know there's a chronological timeline, but it doesn't go out of its way to remind you every 5 seconds. Stuff like Sonic knowing Cream in Rush makes sense because we know they've been friends since Advance 2. 3&K takes place after Sonic 2 with Sonic still having the Chaos Emeralds from his last adventure, Sonic Adventure makes direct reference to previous games having happened, etc. There's always been a sense of chronology, it's just that now it's being taken more seriously.

 

[Card-Nology]

It's kinda nice seeing that battle takes places after shadow 05, I often headcanon it as such. But yeah, this is a pretty nice chronology to think about.