re-upload from my deviantART days, before the site made me rage-quit.

First he's red.
Then he's teal.
Can someone tell me,
what's the deal?

It was probably a marketing thing or design re-planning...

Either way, in all the trailers Buddy appears red (Red is a very marketable and attractive sales color).

But in later images (and I could have sworn trailers too O_O), Buddy's color changed to teal.

Maybe because Knuckles is already red and they didn't want two red characters? Who knows...

I heard that the head-canon for the two wolves are that they're brothers.

The red one is called: »Gadget the Wolf«.
The teal one is called: »Gizmo the Wolf«.

I adopted that head-canon too :)

Fun fact: This is where the whole »checkered background for Sonic characters« aesthetic originated for me, lol XD

Gadget the Wolf and Gizmo the Wolf, the wolf brothers, (officially »Buddy the Avatar«) from Sonic Forces belongs to: Sonic Team, SEGA.