Silver the Hedgehog is a silver-furred hedgehog from 200 years in the future of the main timeline. He first appeared in the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog. His individual episode revolves around him traveling back in time with Blaze the Cat to find and slay Sonic the Hedgehog, who they believe is the cause of their world being destroyed in the future. Silver's primary ability is telekinesis; he is able to levitate objects and use them as projectiles to either defeat enemies, or interact with his environment. Like Sonic and Shadow, he transforms into "super form" by using the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds.

Silver's creation was inspired by the game's early development stages, where the development team was making huge levels with multiple paths through them, and decided they wanted to include a new character with unique abilities for an alternate way to play through the levels. The design team developed over fifty different concepts for the character. At one point he was to actually be an orange mink named Venice (named after the city of the same name), but the developers ultimately decided against this, fearing a mink would not blend in with the rest of the characters. They ended up deciding to make another hedgehog instead. Orange was originally decided for his fur, but they soon moved away from that in color, in favor to a white-gray one. While developing the character models and textures, they focused on using the hardware to develop the textures rather than just use white-gray, which lead to Silver's color and name. Additionally, Silver's backstory was inspired by Trunks from the 1984 manga Dragon Ball, who made a similar journey to the past to kill two androids that would eradicate most of humanity in his own time; the script for Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) flat-out states "Essentially, think Trunks from Dragon Ball Z."

Since his first appearance in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), he has mainly appeared in the Sonic series' spinoffs, multiplayer games, and small cameo roles. He is one of the playable characters in Sonic Rivals and Sonic Rivals 2, a playable character strictly in the multiplayer modes in Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic and the Black Knight, a playable racer in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, Sonic Free Riders and Team Sonic Racing, and a playable athlete in the Mario & Sonic series beginning with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. He appears in Sonic Generations as a boss in the stages Crisis City (console version) and Tropical Resort (3DS version). Additionally, Silver was one of a few Sega characters to make a cameo in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, in the background of Sonic's Green Hill Zone stage, and as a trophy and sticker.

The character has generally not been very well-received by critics.