Sonar is one of Dispatch's most iconic characters, in no small part thanks to Charles 'MoistCr1TiKaL' White's deadpan performance and constant championing of developer AdHoc's work. However, art director Derek Stratton claimed that "he was never meant to be in the game".
Spoilers for Dispatch.
It's hard to imagine now, given that Sonar is one of two characters who can turn heel in the finale and join Shroud's siege of Los Angeles after being fired from the Z-Team, but in the original plans, he was a one-off gag at SDN headquarters.
"I'm pretty sure he was just meant for that moment where Invisigal and Robert are arguing in the kitchen, and he's like... there's just a Bat-Man in the kitchen that is disturbing them by screeching," Stratton told IGN.
Plans completely changed, however, when the team saw the concept art, and like fans eventually would over the last month, they fell in love with the oddly normal-looking human with a giant bat head. "[AdHoc] had some generic sketches of background characters and stuff like that," Stratton explained. "Everybody kept pointing to [Sonar] being like, 'Who is this guy? This guy is awesome. I want to...
