IGN Frontiers Footage Shows Old Moves in a New Context

This morning, IGN premiered their new Sonic Frontiers footage, noting that the month will see further updates, but for now, we’ve got 6 minutes of edited gameplay footage:

The video shows off Sonic running through the rocky grasslands area we’ve seen, but there’s much more interaction with the environment. In fact, unlike yesterday’s 30 second clip, this one has no combat whatsoever, just world traversal.

Sonic doesn’t have many new moves, but the one that is shown off is the ability to draw circles by running, causing an updraft. Meanwhile, Sonic maintains his standard 3D moveset of running, boosting, grinding, air dashing, air dropping, sidestepping, and wall running for good measure. While Sonic seems to only be able to run (and climb, apparently) on vertical surfaces with a specific glowing texture, he can take rock slopes and ridges with ease by maintaining speed.

If you were worried (as I was) that moving to an open world might mean less actual level design, the video is full of small instances of speed and platforming challenges, be it scaling a tall tower dotted with springs and homing points, or just finding paths made of boost rings and grind rails. There’s even a few simple puzzles thrown into the mix.

Rest assured, we’ll be picking this apart over the next few days, but for now, go enjoy some tranquil vistas at intense speed.

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