Sonic 3 post-credits scenes explained: Meet the new characters

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

Jeff Fowler, the director of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, previously teased to Entertainment Weekly how the ending of his third entry tees up the introduction of new characters, similar to the past two films. This time, however, we got two newbies instead of one — plus a returning face.

"It's fun to see the fan debates online about who's coming up next, who's going to be teased at the end of the film," Fowler said in a November interview with EW. "We have a lot of the same conversations. We've all got our favorites on the filmmaking side, and we're all making great cases for 'it should be this one or that one.' It is fun to keep that anticipation."

The first Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) teased the arrival of Tails (voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey) with a post-credits scene. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), which also gave us Knuckles (Idris Elba), gave us a glimpse at Shadow (Keanu Reeves). Now, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (in theaters now) has unveiled Metal Sonic and Amy Rose in one fell swoop ahead of Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

Putting the 'bot in Robotnik

In the aftermath of Shadow joining Team Sonic long enough to sacrifice himself to thwart Gerald Robotnik's (Jim Carrey) world-destroying plot, the Blue Blur (Ben Schwartz) decides on another race to prove himself the fastest hedgehog as a callback to an earlier scene in the movie. However, in the mid-credits scene, he overshoots it and finds himself in an unfamiliar forest where a swarm of Metal Sonics ambushes him.

Metal Sonic is another character from the long-running Sega video game series. The android first appeared in 1993's Sonic CD for the Sega CD console as a militarized robot created by Dr. Ivo Robotnik to mimic Sonic's abilities. Like Sonic's own personalized Terminators, the army of Metal Sonics targets the hero and completely overwhelms him...

...until...a hooded figure wielding a giant hammer bursts out of nowhere and makes quick work of the 'bots. Who is this figure?

She removes her covering to reveal herself as Amy Rose, another character that was first introduced in Sonic CD. Amy Rose appears as a pink hedgehog whose chief weapon is the Piko Piko Hammer. The character doesn't speak in the film, and casting will likely be announced at a later time.

In the games, Amy Rose is always high energy and has a pretty strong love obsession with Sonic, who typically does not return said affection. So, we can at least expect some form of that in whoever ends up playing the character.

Out from the shadows

The actual post-credits scene doesn't introduce a third new character but does bring back one presumed to be dead.

The sequence opens on what looks like a meteor crash site on Earth, except it wasn't space rock that collided with the ground, it was Shadow. We don't see the face of the black hedgehog with red streaks, but we do see his hands grab the gold ringlets he wore earlier in the movie around his wrists.

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It's a family film series, after all! The dead hero can't be that dead. And now there's another new hedgehog who can live on to fight alongside Team Sonic in the future. The Sonic family keeps growing.

Paramount Pictures officially announced Sonic the Hedgehog 4 one day before the third film hit theaters. The fourth entry is now slated to open in theaters in the spring of 2027. It's a good thing Shadow is back alongside Amy Rose's introduction because Sonic will need some extra muscle if he's to face an army of his android counterparts.