At a recent convention, the voice of Knuckles, Scott Dreier, reveals that Knuckles basically does swear in Sonic Heroes.
At the Sac Gamers Expo 2024 during a 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 hardest 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 I 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, the 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 first 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 first swear word in Sonic media actually comes from the 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.
“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 interpreter asking for it even softer or just a touch louder.
The hard work paid off, because Dreier 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 no 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 rock 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 best Sonic games of all time.