One of the most fun elements of the Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise is the wide variety of colorful characters. This includes heroes like Sonic, Tails, and their friends, as well as villains like Dr. Eggman, Mephiles, and Metal Sonic. It’s always fun to see all these characters return, whether it’s in a mainline story game or a side racing game. There’s one group of baddies, though, that has been returning in the games quite a bit, and that’s the Deadly Six.

The Deadly Six, a group of a species called Zeti who originated in 2013’s Sonic Lost World, is made up of Zavok, Zazz, Zomom, Master Zik, Zeena, and Zor. Since their initial appearance on the Nintendo Wii U console, Sega has brought them back a number of times. Fans of the series have found this to be a baffling decision.

For starters, the Deadly Six aren’t particularly interesting or cool like a lot of the other characters in the franchise. Instead of being an animal or a robot like most of the cast, they’re just sort of… things. They honestly don’t look like they fit in with the rest of this world, and them being unique is not a good thing in this case.

It’s also worth noting that the game that they originated from, Sonic Lost World, isn’t remembered fondly. Neither fans nor critics liked it very much when it first came out, and the consensus hasn’t really changed over time. They’re characters who aren’t well-liked from a video game that isn’t well liked, but Sega keeps revisiting them and treating them like staple side characters.

They’ve been made playable in racing games and have appeared in comic books, including the crossover with DC Comics. It’s honestly quite baffling. These six weirdos even get more attention from Sega than other characters fans have been craving a return for, like Chaos or Emerl. It’s been making a lot of fans ask why.

What’s the point of keeping these characters around without revisiting better-liked ones? If other characters like Tikal got to also stick around for a race or some other spin-off adventure, then it wouldn’t feel so jarring. Keeping the Deadly Six of all characters around is just plain weird. It feels random.

It doesn’t seem like the Deadly Six are going away any time soon, so it looks like the Sonic fandom will have to deal with them for the foreseeable future. Let’s hope they give other under-used characters the same treatment at some point.

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