Sega revealed today that another old stage would be returning for Sonic Forces. This time the Chemical Plant is making an icy return.
Hinted at previously through in-game dialogue this is the first time we’ve seen the Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic Forces. However, unlike it’s incarnation in Generations and Mania, the Chemical Plant is a little chilly, it’s been frozen over with ice.
So far only screenshots showing the Avatar have been made available. But given the track history with Forces so far, odds are Classic and Modern Sonic will also see action in this stage.
Source: Sonic the Hedgehog twitter.
Wow! A WHOLE NEW LEVEL, COMPLETELY FROZEN WITH ICE!!!!!!!!!
Just Pathetic, Iizuka
Tell that to the Mania fans…
Where are we seeing ice in this level? Did they mention it in the in-game dialogue?
SCREW THE ICE HOLY CRUD THERE IS A REAL SKY FOR ONCE!
This forced nostalgia is getting ridiculous. So first we get Green Hill Zone but with sand in Sonic Forces, and now it’s Chemical Plant Zone but with ice? And this news comes right after Sega releases Sonic Mania which included both of these zones as well. Is Sega honestly just out of ideas?
That, or laziness
come on man…
I mean it looks different but how about completely different?
Is Sonic Team just reusing assets from their previous games to make development easier?
I actually think so. Now I’m wondering if their statement of working on this game for so many years includes the time they were making these assets for Generations first.
No they are just being lazy to develop new materials.
Umm… okay? They do know we just had it in Mania, right?
Next they are gonna reveal Sky Sanctuary sunken to the ocean, Speed Highway during power failure, Seaside Hill inhabited by robotized, flying killer whales, Crisis City being Crisis City again and Planet Wisp full of Xenomorphs.
I swear, we’re about to play Sonic Generations 2.0 in the near future.
Don’t forget City Escape on a farm.
But yeah, I share your sentiments. It’s like Sega thinks that they can fool us into thinking that they are doing something new by slightly tweaking their old zone designs. Now, if they were honest and pitched it as Generations 2 or whatever, I would feel much better about Mania and Forces overall. As it is though, this is the second time this year that they are making a “new game” by rehashing a lot of old stuff while sprinkling in just a little new content in here and there, and I’m a little insulted that Sega thinks that I’ll buy whatever they churn out solely because of nostalgia. I’m perfectly happy with playing the *real* classic zone designs on the many copies of the classic Sonic games that I own on various platforms.
“Brand new experience”
“Next they are gonna reveal Sky Sanctuary sunken to the ocean.”
How about: Sky Sanctuary sunken to the OIL OCEAN? Man I’m creative, can I be part of Sonic Team now?
Can’t say much other than it looks nice really. I like the effects and look of the drill wisp as well as the general setting but I haven’t seen the level in motion yet. It looks to be more of the path based stuff we’ve seen already, which isn’t bad but with so many interesting objects dotted around the scene I’d like to be able to get to those areas as opposed to speeding past them. Guess we’ll see where this goes.
As a side note. While I would prefer to see new locations in the game, the returning stages so far (aside from the level design) don’t irk me all that much. If it’s anything like Sonic Mania where they’re establishing that Sonic’s world is still interconnected and hasn’t changed much, I can get with that. If it turns out to be just for the sake of, then I’ll be upset.
Sonic’s world is the human world, which was made very clear in the Adventures, ’06 and Unleashed. Unfortunately, Iizuka does not understand that.
I know dude, I still have copies of the aforementioned titles, generally speaking they’re the ones I go to replay most often. I agree in regards to it being the human world, I’m generally saying that even with that being the case, Sonic has travelled most of it already, i.e Unleashed, Adventure etc. The more surreal locations seem to be on islands that only Eggman and the animal cast know how to get to. Nonetheless, while I don’t think Chemical plant’s implementation is the best thing, I personally wouldn’t know where to take the series in terms of location either at this point. We’ve been across the world, through space (other planets), parallel dimensions (Rush Adventure) and through time, that’s pretty extensive for a 26 year franchise. Mania had some interesting ideas (Studiopolis, Mirage Saloon, Press Garden, Titanic Monarch) but they do boil down to Casino/leisure, Desert, active factory and Eggman base. I’m not saying they’re not different in their own way but you can only change the premise so much… know what I mean. Anyway, I won’t make an issue out of it, Mania’s been instrumental in having a universally successful franchise entry so I won’t go on about it, I just hope that Forces steps up its game before release, it’s been a good year for Sonic so far, so I hope SEGA AM8 keeps it going.
P.S I don’t think Lizuka’s terrible, he has done more than his fair share for the series, despite many on the development team having abandoned past projects, but I do believe he should reconsider his approach. Though it has always been my go to series, I think giving Sonic a break soon to refine it while allowing for development of other IP’s may do some good. Whether that will happen or not is another thing altogether.
Sonic’s world has no consistency whatsoever; Sometimes it’s a world infested with humans and life-like animals and sometimes it’s a cartoon world where the odd one out is Eggman/Dr. Robotnik. It’s not Lizuka not understanding, it’s Lizuka being lazy.
i’m really excited to play Forces and I think i will personally enjoy it.
But COME ON. Stop with the old zones, it’s so unnecessary and unoriginal -__-
(Unless, somehow, the storyline is so amazing that it actually *does* feel like they should be there)
forgot to add – it’d be better if they at least did zones that haven’t been remade before. I’d love to see Frog Forest tbh
astheticly – besides the track to run on, it really doesnt look like the traditional chemical plant zone. these all look like realistic structures unlike S2, Gen and Mania.
These are the first screenshots that don’t look like it was made for the first playstation/dreamcast age. So I’m glad to see that. And at first it looks nice.
But like others said, each Sonic game repeats the very first Sonic game. I thought this was the year that SEGA should finally get it, and fix it. Looks to me, those who are responsible for this, should get fired and never be allowed to get into the game business again.
With that being said, I hope when I get my hands on it, we were wrong and this game really exceeds our expectations.
I do however, hope they DELAY the game by at least a year. Send them over to those who did Mania and have them fix it with their brilliant skills and minds.
These retro levels are getting out of hand. We want new materials.
Okay, so here’s the thing, I love Chemical Plant Zone, it’s one of my favourite levels in Sonic history. And seeing it return in Generations and Mania was great especially for those awesome music remixes…
But in Forces it feels so unnecessary. The previous Chemical Plant appearances made sense given the context that they part of the celebration of Sonic game history. But here it feels redundant, liked forced nostalgia. I was annoyed to see Green Hill again for the 100th time but hoped that’d be the only returning stage, but here’s another one, like Sega think everyone loves nostalgia forever and dont want nothing new.
I like nostalgic callbacks to past, but not when it comes at the cost of something new/different. I really hope there’s more new stuff to come as opposed to rehashing the past with some slightly different gimmick.
^Agreed. Sonic Adventure had all new levels. Let’s hope this is not just a Sonic Generations Expansion Pack. We have community modders who do this for free.
Sega really screwed the pooch by not communicating more with the Mania team about stage variety. Mania was constrained to the first 4 titles, but there are still plenty of stages that it didn’t use Forces could have drawn from. Aquatic Ruin, Marble Zone, Wacky Workbench, Ice Cap, all of these are recognizable and very distinct from what is in Mania and has been already shown in Forces. Ice Cap in particular would have worked well here by making Eggman pollute the ice and build structures there to achieve very similar gameplay and aesthetics as freezing the chemicals in the plant.
But even disregarding that, Forces has the rest of the dang series to draw from for this. Chemical Plant could have been swapped with Eggmanland or Metal Harbor or Prison Island or Aquatic Base or probably a bunch others and still had a fresh looking metal level with aquatic elements. They don’t need to just include the whole Generations level pack in this since it’s familiar.
Sega’s mindset right now is based on the popular levels for each game…. a vote that was made during the development of Sonic Generations before anyone even knew of it’s existence.
Green Hill won the vote for Sonic 1
Chemical plant won for Sonic 2
Sky Sanctuary for Sonic 3&K
Speed Highway for Sonic Adventure
City Escape for Sonic Adventure 2
Seaside Hill for Sonic Heroes
Crisis City for Sonic 06
Rooftop Run for Sonic Unleashed
Planet Wisp for Sonic Colors
Sega seems to be remaking these levels the most because they think that’s what we… “the fans” want because we “voted” for those levels as our “favorites”!
Keep in mind… “I wouldn’t be surprised” if any other levels that I listed above “appeared” in Sonic Forces!
My words in quotations are the key words.
Chemical Plant has zero reason to be here. It shouldn’t have been in Mania, and it damn sure shouldn’t be here.
I want to be really stark about how they just felt the need to use the chemical plant zone, again, for the third game in a row and how there is nothing suggesting snow and frost in the pics but……I just have to admit it really does look good and unlike the Greenhills zone it doesn’t bare that much resemblance to it’s former level to bother…..I just might like it