Who is your favorite character, and how could they be used on Sodor in game? I'm gonna have to go with Cranky. He's a cantakerous old coot, but has a good heart and in game he'd be a fun addition to a port scene, allowing you to load/unload cargo and onto planes and ships. That's something TSW has struggled with, but it'd be neat to if nothing else have a completion cut scene where something you delivers gets offloaded/moved to a ship.
My favourite will always be Edward because he was one of the first engines in the Railway Series books and one of the original engines in the TV series since 1984
Gordon. He's one of the few characters who seems to be pretty much the same no matter what. His episodes in the TV series were also among the best (even during the awful Hit era). He's probably the most developed character in the entire series (more so the original Railway Series books). The only one you meet the family of. He's one of the first characters anyone would be able to name. Edward was the first, Thomas is the star. But Gordon is the best. Could probably say a whole lot more, but then I'd probably be better off writing a dissertation.
If I have to throw in my own top 5's (ok 10 technically), it'll be: Gordon, Duck, Emily, Thomas, Donald & Douglas, Oliver, Mavis, BoCo, Salty, & Diesel 10
Not all of them, it's more like the first 7 seasons of my top favs of the model age. Even more so on the same characters during the CGI era.
Favorite character is Falcon/Sir Handel but that'd require a narrow gauge DLC line from Crovan's Gate Best standard gauge engine is Edward, hoping he will be the next DLC character along with Henry
Edwards branch line and Henry’s forest appear on the map I get the impression that the employees at dovetail who are making the game are fans of the original tv series and they’ll use the Thomas license to build the game they want without much input from Mattel
They're still under the terms of whatever Mattel say though. Mattel hold the license and are pretty strict about it. Edward's Branch Line (which is a Nickname) is officially named the Brendam Branch Line. Henry's Forest last appeared in 2008, which is before Mattel even, and again just a nickname. Henry and Edward, after the Big World Big Adventures rebrand, mainly made cameo appearances. In fact, Edward actually appeared a total three times after this. Its very clear Mattel wanted, and continues, to forget about them.
What Mattel did with BWBA is fairly irrelevant I think. There's a reason this game isn't based around AEG or the new reboot. I strongly suspect both Edward and Henry will appear as DLC.