Sonic X Shadow's Keanu Reeves DLC is a fun teaser for the Sonic 3 movie

In this house, we love Shadow the Hedgehog. My family has been hyped up for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for months, and have been absolute dorks over Sega’s whole Year of Shadow thing. So it makes plenty of sense that when the new DLC for Sonic X Shadow Generations, which transports the uh, “real” Shadow into the world of Paramount’s upcoming movie, I was stoked. The idea of playing as Keanu Reeves in a context far sillier than Cyberpunk or The Matrix is just too funny. The DLC dropped over the weekend, and I spent some time playing the new Tokyo level. It was fun! Hooray! Wait, that’s it?

The way this new content presents itself is fun. A mysterious, purple haze appears in the White Space, and when Shadow approaches it turns into a giant ring. In the middle is a window to another world, or Tokyo’s Shibuya ward to be more precise. Shadow gets sucked in, and upon landing on the other side realizes he’s… different. His fur is coarser, his sneakers are more expensive, and his voice sounds like a confused, middle-aged man reading lines off a piece of paper. Okay that last line was rude, but Reeves isn’t using the voice you hear in the Sonic 3 trailers, which cheapens the impact a little. Or maybe it’s a Bane situation and the trailers are off. Who could say?

Anyway, Shadow only gets a few seconds to take in his alien surroundings before he sees something he does recognize: GUN’s logo stamped in bright yellow on the side of a helicopter. It’s on sight with those jerks for Shadow, so it’s time to forget about the funny, new voice and go kick that helicopter’s ass. The Tokyo act proceeds from here, with Shadow pursuing his pseudo-cop nemeses, fighting robots, and using chaos control to avoid missiles. Along the way, you can find some hidden posters, which you can check out in the collection room later to ooh and ahh at the DLC’s new movie-like Shadow model. Overall it’s a lovely, little splash of new content and serves as an enticing taste of what’s to come in the new movie.

The stage itself perfectly encapsulates what’s so special about Shadow Generations. I reviewed the game here a few months ago and I still think about how good it ended up being. 3D Sonic lives or dies by how “polished” it is, and Shadow Generations nails its pitched collection of gimmicks and mechanics better than anything before it. You feel it in the way this level especially arranges things like boost pads and airborne rings; in other Sonic games I’d see certain obstacles or alternate pathways set up and ignore them, knowing attempting them would be a battle against unstable physics. Here, I can see things and hit them almost without thinking, with the occasional misfire being immediately correctable.

There’s a lot of fun, over the top cutscene magic in Tokyo as well, especially when Shadow finally catches up to that dang helicopter. Dude tussles with missiles in a way that invokes the Sonic movies, then latches onto the thing and rips the hapless soldier inside right out and tosses him like a ragdoll. He gets a parachute of course, because Shadow isn’t that dude, but he gets as close as the ratings boards would allow. These moments aren’t interactive, and there’s only one single-button QTE, but it’s a nice reward for getting past the actual action, and it’s not like any of that is compromised at all in the first place. Plus, it’s not just one helicopter you get to crash, especially if you’re good with Chaos Control.

I did walk away disappointed in the DLC experience only being one level. One level in a Sonic game isn’t exactly a substantial chunk of gaming; we’re looking at about two minutes and some change for a run. Sure, there are a couple challenge gimmicks you can play afterwards, and there’s always time and score-attacking (or tracking down a poster or two if you missed ‘em the first time), but it’s hard not to think “That’s it?” for new content that came out months after the game’s launch. Reeve’s involvement is also only a few short lines, so it feels lacking in substance in that regard too.

I half expected the level to end with an actual trailer for Sonic 3, almost like a more shameless version of P.T. ending with that cursed Silent Hills footage. Sega had restraint there, as clearing Tokyo simply ended with a quiet return to White Space. As much as I wished there was more to it, especially considering Sonic “Zones” typically have two or three “Acts,” I still had a great time causing mayhem in Shibuya with Shadow. It was a fun way to spend a few minutes in the morning over the weekend, and served its purpose by reminding me the new movie is around the corner as we head toward the holidays. And hey, at this point I’ll never say no to more Shadow Generations.

Sonic x Shadow Generations and the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Movie Pack DLC are available now for the PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The DLC is included in the Deluxe Edition for free, which we received from the publisher for review. Otherwise it's purchasable separately.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.