User:GiverOfThePeace/Into the Sonicverse

Introduction

Sonic has a shaky canon in regards to most other series due to how continuity is treated, basically very loosely. This blog will intend to have a canon timeline of events. Do note this is not perfectly released in timeline order. Do note that post-06 isn't an "alternate timeline" it's a timeline reset.

Addressing “Everything is Canon”

This comes not only from a twitter post, a statement made from the dev team during Sonic Mania, and it’s plastered around the Sonic Encylospeedia. Now the first two parts are just a running joke from Aaron Webber answering YouTube chat questions, you'd have to be a fan of the official Sonic livestreams for quite some time to even catch that it's a reference. For the Enclyospeedia it makes an everything is canon statement but also directly states Chronicles is non-canon, so we can either gauge that as just a reference to the running joke or that it means canon in terms of overall multiverse rather than a singular universe. Basically “Everything is Canon” isn’t proof for something being a part of the main timeline. It has been further extrapolated in the BumbleKast Q&A with Ian Flynn that "Everything is Canon" isn't an official statement or that's it "canon", thus this statement isn't at all usable. Mania is canon and it’s an alternate timeline for instance. For further confirmation, Ian Flynn in an Q&A said that the Archie, Game, and Boom multiverse are completely separate and not canon/connected to each other. Thus "Everything is Canon" is completely unusable.

It should also be noted that Ian himself that he is not the primary source when it comes to Sonic questions and is more of personal opinion, thus he is only a tertiary source when it comes to statements, he is merely for extra insight and context.

Classic Era

Canon

The following games are considered canon to the Classic Era:

• Sonic the Hedgehog

• Sonic CD: Sonic Origins has Sonic CD take place after Sonic 2.

• SegaSonic the Hedgehog: Introduces Mighty and Ray, and doesn’t have any real contradictions.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2/Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure

• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

• Sonic 3D Blast

• Knuckles Chaotix: It has since been officially confirmed canon. Takashi in an interview notes the Team Chaotix in Sonic Heroes are essentially recreated characters as they didn't work on Knuckles Chaotix.

• Sonic the Hedgehog (8-Bit): With a lot of recent Q&As, spin-offs are now canon.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-Bit)

• Sonic the Hedgehog

• Sonic R

• Sonic the Fighters

• Sonic Drift 1 & 2

• Sonic Blast

• Sonic Mania: Iizuka decided to put Mania as canon by noting Sonic Superstars placement, which comes after Mania but before Adventure and he notes this is within the Classic Timeline Is an official alternate timeline.

• Sonic Superstars: Takes place before Adventure but after Mania.

Alternative Timeline

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-Bit) Bad Ending: It heavily implies Tails is dead.

Non-Canon

• Sonic Spinball: Not only is it based off the SatAM series, but it also has 16 chaos emeralds, twice the established canon amount.

• Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine: Based on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, a non-canon cartoon.

• Sonic's Schoolhouse: Do I fucking need to explain?

• Sonic Eraser: Awful music aside, literally no clue where this would go.

• Tails Skypatrol

• Tails Adventure

Pre-Reset Era

Canon

• Sonic 4: Modern design for characters, foreshadows the events of Metal Sonic in Sonic Heroes, and is meant as a bridge between the Classic and Modern games.

• Sonic Adventure

• Sonic Advance

• Sonic Shuffle

• Sonic Adventure 2

• Sonic Advance 2

• Sonic Advance 3

• Sonic Prime: Directly noted that Sonic Prime takes place "sometime after Advance 3", being noted noted as canon. What David Jaffe notes in this interview is the series is "Part of the Canon", and that it "ties directly into the mythology, with Sega also directly being involved with this show through the entire step.

• Sonic Heroes

• Shadow the Hedgehog (True Ending): We don’t actually know how he got all 7 chaos emeralds, every route done during the game is a non-canon route. For a basic idea of what's actually canon in this game. From here to here is the canon intro, the entire game then goes on non-canon filler until we reach here where it becomes canon again.

• Sonic Battle

• Sonic Riders

• Sonic 06

Non Canon

• Shadow the Hedgehog (All endings sans Last Story): Every ending is non-canon and has radically different Shadows. The journey he goes through during the game is also non-canon as it reaches different routes, with the true route not specifying what he did to gain all 7 chaos emeralds.

Post-Reset Era

Canon

• Sonic Rivals

• Sonic Rivals 2

• Sonic Rush

• Sonic Rush Adventure

• Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity

• Sonic Riders: Free Riders

• Sonic and the Secret Rings

• Sonic Unleashed

• Sonic and the Black Knight

• Sonic Colors DS/Sonic Colors (Wii)/Sonic Colors Ultimate

• Sonic Generations/Sonic Generations DS

• Sonic Lost World

• Sonic Forces

• Team Sonic Racing

• Sonic Frontiers

• Sonic Dream Team: Directly noted as canon by Ian Flynn.

Alternate Timeline

• Sonic Boom: Directly confirmed a parallel universe.

Non-Canon

• Sonic Runners: To quote from the sonic wiki on their Sonic Runners page: "The canonicity of Sonic Runners appears to be dubious at best, but it appears to specifically follow the canon of the handheld versions of multi-platform Sonic games. This is evident several times, such as as Mother Wisp being mentioned; Sonic and Tails only encountered her in the DS version of Sonic Colors. However, the game's event-exclusive episodes are equally evident in being non-canon due to some companions being characters from certain games that endings imply Sonic will never meet again, such as Chip, and Sonic not knowing who Merlina is, despite meeting her in Sonic and the Black Knight. Even more curiously, Sonic does not recognize Erazor Djinn or King Shahryar despite the characters implying that the events of Sonic and the Secret Rings have taken place." Along with this Ian Flynn has noted that Sonic Dream Team is the first mobile Sonic game to be canon.

• All Mario and Sonic the Olympic Games: Pretty much not considered canon to Mario nor Sonic, and meets the non-canon crossover thing.

• Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing/Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: Characters from not only other Sega games, but random Disney movies appear in it. Doesn’t really have a concrete place in the canon timeline either.