The character of Shadow was conceived by Takashi Iizuka,[1] director of Sonic Adventure 2, the game in which Shadow was first introduced.[7] The character was first shown to the public in a game trailer; however, his name was not revealed.[8] GameSpot described what little was shown as an "evil version of Sonic himself - similar in appearance, but with darker skin, more angled eyes, and a fearsome snarl instead of Sonic's trademark grin."[8] Takashi Iizuka said that they maintained the mystery around the character of Shadow the Hedgehog and had wanted to feature him in his own game since he was introduced.[9] After feeling that it would be inappropriate to give Sonic's character a gun as fans had requested in mailings,[10] Yuji Naka believed that by focusing on Shadow for his own game, they could use his different identity from Sonic to build upon the Sonic brand.[11] The character was featured as a guest announcer and performed other promotional work for the game's release during a wrestling show set up by the Japanese league, Pancrase, in December 2005.[10]