Sonic Chronicles 2 plot details finally revealed including the reason why the sequel never got made

The newest video by Did You Know Gaming is covering ‘Lost Sonic Games’, in this video they take a look at a variety of Sonic games that never came to be. One of the biggest featured lost games happens to be Sonic Chronicles 2! The original Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood came out way back in 2008 and was developed by Bioware. It also happens to be the only Sonic RPG ever created. Of course, while the game wasn’t perfect, fans wound still want the developers to give it another try, especially considering the original game ended in a cliffhanger where our heroes return from space only to find out Eggman had taken over the world while they where gone…

If you guys skipped Sonic Forces, its basically the idea behind that plot that Eggman had won and taken over the world, shaping it in his image.

According to Sonic Chronicles designer Miles Holmes:

“Picking it up from the cliffhanger, they would come back and its now Eggman’s world, right? So that’s a little of a Back to the Future 2 kind of vibe. We talked about Skynet in Terminator 2, when you get to see the future, when you get to see where Kyle Reece is from, but now its all Eggman’s stuff. So in this case, Eggman unchecked by Sonic has been able to do what he’s always wanted to do and remake the world in his image.” – Miles Holmes, Bioware designer 

As you know, its a similar idea that Sonic Team used in 2017’s Sonic Forces where Sonic the Hedgehog was captured, broken out and now joins the resistance to take over the planet that has been 99% taken over by Eggman. Of course Sonic Chronicles explanation that Sonic and his friends left earth to beat Argus, only to find out that time moves slower in space, thus coming back to a planet taken over by Eggman seems more logical.

“Alot of the population’s been rounded up and they’re prisoners and they’re slaves or whatever. You’ve got Eggman’s machines, in a very dystopic Terminator future. Part of what would’ve been fun of to go to famous world landmarks and seeing them remade in this Eggman style, so going to Paris and seeing Eggman’s gear all over the Eiffel Tower, sort of watching down with a big eye or something like that. So those would’ve been some of the locations.” – Miles Holmes, Bioware designer 

While I’m OK with using landmarks remade in Eggman’s image, it seems like a fun take on iconic world locations, isn’t it a bit dark to have slavery in a Sonic game? .

The game would have Sonic and his friends scattered all over the world in their own parties fighting their ways to freeing prisoners. Again, seems an idea that Sonic Team took for Sonic Forces. In Sonic Chronicles 2 you would be freeing people to make an army to storm Eggman’s fortress. Once Sonic and friends with their new found army go to storm Eggman, we get the return of Sonic Chronicle‘s Argus, the god being, who as we all know had a pocket dimension filled with races that could stand a chance against him.

The game would have also revealed why Argus was collecting and sealing races within his pocket dimension, the reason being that it was foretold a mortal would beat him. Thus Argus would gather up any race that could pose a threat but the oracle who told Argus this actually tricked Argus into collecting a super team that would then be able to beat him. So as Sonic frees these races (including the lost Echidnas):

“It was basically a manipulation — so we’re left with this notion of: Who’s  this oracle, this trickster god that got him to do this in the first place? Because obviously he wanted all this to happen, he wanted Argus defeated, and now with him out of the way, the longer question that could’ve been used over the series is: okay so we’ve defeated this one god, but now there’s this other god that made all these things happen. Why did he do that, what was it for, and will it eventually threaten us? And if the series was gonna continue, then obviously yes this is gonna be a problem, and we’ll come back to it.” – Miles Holmes, Bioware designer 

According to Miles Holmes, Bioware would leave the game in a cliffhanger and stop working on Sonic Chronicles franchise after the sequel but set it up for SEGA or other studios to take over the franchise and continue the story. So, why didn’t we get a sequel? Well according to Miles Holmes its all because of Ken Penders who started copyrighting his Archie characters two months after Sonic Chronicles launched, where he took SEGA to court since some characters used in Sonic Chronicles bear resemblance to Ken Penders creations, the lawsuits would be dragged into court for years.

“I find it puzzling honestly, I’ve worked with other people’s IP for a long time, as he has. And I’ve never had any kind of notion that I own anything that I’m doing in somebody else’s sandbox. I think if SEGA had taken him seriously and litigated properly, it very quickly would have gone away. But it was probably a series of unforced errors that led to the result we got.” – Miles Holmes, Bioware Designer

Did You Know Gaming also took Ken Pender’s side of things and his opinion has been the same since he started this legal mess. He is a creator taking on a billion dollar company for the characters and work he created. I’m all for independent characters owning their own characters and work, but I think when your work is part of a franchise you didn’t create its it a bit much. For example, Sonic the Hedgehog was crated by Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima, but they aren’t taking SEGA to court over their characters and stopping all future Sonic games from being made. If Ken Penders made his own IP, from the ground up and went against Archie for it, I would support him. But using a popular character he had nothing to do with, making minor characters and then stopping other games from being created because they have ‘similar ideas’ is a bit ludicrous.

According to Ken Penders, who created 100k priced NFTs of his characters, if SEGA wants to approach him to work out a deal for Sonic Chronicles 2 he’s all for it. In my opinion, SEGA is probably right to just move on, but I still think a ‘Sonic RPG’ isn’t a bad idea if done correctly within the Sonic world that SEGA 100% owns. I think IDW has introduced great characters and has great writers (Ian Flynn and Evan Staneley) that could make a really amazing Sonic RPG world.

As you seen, Sonic Chronicles 2 would have to have an audience know the plot details of a game that came out 15 years ago, that’s asking a lot. But what is you’re opinion on Sonic Chronicles 2? Would you have liked to see a sequel back in the day?

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