The death(?) of Eggman
After our heroes divert the Eclipse Cannon from Earth, the facility becomes unstable and self-destructs. To prevent the explosion from contaminating Earth’s atmosphere, Eggman and Shadow sacrifice themselves to move it away from the planet. Shadow was presumed dead at the end of Sonic Adventure 2, but was revealed to have survived in Sonic Heroes. Eggman, meanwhile, survives the events of the Dreamcast game and lives to bother Sonic and his friends another day. If Carrey’s version of the series villain is well and truly dead (there’s no tease of his survival like there was at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2), then that’ll be one of the biggest deviations Sonic 3 makes from the source material.
It’s still unclear how the movies will go on without him, but given the sendoff the character got, it would feel cheap to bring him back. We’ll know more when Sonic the Hedgehog 4 premieres in 2027.
