21 years on, Sonic Heroes voice actor reveals that Knuckles was responsible for the games' first curse word, not Shadow
Turns out, we were all correct

At a recent convention, the voice of Knuckles, Scott Dreier, reveals that Knuckles basically does swear in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Sonic Heroes.
At the Sac Gamers Expo 2024 during a𝐆 December 15 panel with David Humphrey (the voice of Shadow) and Ryan Drummond (the voice of Sonic) celebrating the anniversary of Sonic Heroes, Dreier says the har🃏dest line he ever had to say was "Shift, rock, yeah!"
If you played Sonic Heroes as a kid or have revisited in your adult years and ever thought that "shift" sounded a lot like a swear word, that's the point. No one tell my mum, I played that game when I൩ was eight.
"That was the hardest line for me, because back in the day they did not want us to swear, we weren't allowed to swear," Dreier remembers. "That day in particular everyone was in the booth and they had me on mute. I could see the entire Japanese team having this conversation and thinking, 'am I doing something wrong? Am I being let go?' Finally, tꦯhe interpreter speaks up and says, 'would you feel comfortable making that F of shift as soft as you can. We want it to be shift, but we want people to wonder if you're swearing.'"
So, if you remember hearing it as s**t, that was entirely intentional but done in a way that Sega could still get away with not technically swearing in a kids game. So, Shadow wasn't the f⛎irst one to swear in a Sonic game, it was actually Knuckles. To be honest, here in the UK most of us wouldn't even consider "damn" or "crap" swear words, but maybe we're all just potty mouths.
The actually comes from t♏he Blue Blur himself. In the original Japanese dub of SonicX episode two, he says "s**t" when he and Cream are evading some security lasers.
In the 🌺reuinion video, it's amazing seeing Dreier and the other voice actors switch into Knuckles, Sonic, and Shadow, they're incredibly talented. Even so, it wasn't easy for Dreier.
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"It was the hardest line for me to say because it's really hard to give that performance, that 'yeah!' but also to make that F super silent and it took us about an hour," Dreier continues. I can picture it now, Dreier saying the line and then the interpreteꦑr asking for it even softer or just a touch louder.

The hard work paid off, because D🔯reier adds, "I will never forget when I got it right, that entire room erupting and laughing and giggling and thinking that they were going to be putting in this little Easter egg. It's so naughty, but now n♌o one would give it a second thought."
It clearly worked, as people have been wondering about it online for years. "My favorite thing is now when people come up to me today and say, 'you have to tell me is it shift rock yeah or s**t roc⛎k yeah?' my answer is always, 'yes.' It's very tiny but it's there."
While you're reminiscing about that, check out our ranking of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Sonic games of all time.

I'm Issꦿy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heaౠding up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.