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A whole bunch of info came out about Sonic Frontiers today, and it’s not just what we got in the trailer. A pre-order bonus, an ”Adventurer’s Treasure Box,” will be available for anyone who pre-orders. Check out the image below:
In addition to this, the game’s Steam page has also confirmed that it will be using the infamous Denuvo anti-piracy software.
Finally, it appears anyone who signs up for the Sonic Frontiers newsletter will receive codes for free in-game content. You can sign up here.
While not quite headlining the Gamescom Opening Night Live presentation, Sonic was promised and delivered. The game is set to release on November 8 to all major platforms, and while we’ll put together a full breakdown of details, features, and speculation later, you can catch the trailer now:
Continue reading New Story Details, Locations, and Release Date in Sonic Frontiers’ Gamescom TrailerWell, we’ve got another Sonic Frontiers leak, this time via what appears to be a flier for merch. It’s hard to tell, since everything is either in Chinese or Japanese and translation tools aren’t much help.
Bare minimum, the image below gives us a new, low res look at some character art from the game. Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and the kocos are all featured, and there appear to be two silhouettes with question marks, which may be pointing towards to other yet-to-be-revealed characters for the game. These appear to be prizes for something.
The merch has a release date of November 15, which could point towards a release date of the game itself. Sonic games usually hit around this time of year, so it wouldn’t be especially surprising. The flier also makes mention of DLC, which could confirm that Sonic Frontiers will have some.
Check out the flier below:
The flier came from a Taiwanese website. You can find it here.
After announcing a world premiere new look of the game at Opening Night Live next week, you would expect Sonic Frontiers to make some kind of formal appearance on the show floor at Gamescom 2022. Well, luckily for anyone who’s attending, those expectations were right. SEGA has sent a press release confirming a playable demo as well as a meet and greet with Takashi Iizuka.
Continue reading Gamescom to Host Sonic Frontiers “World First Public Outing”, Iizuka Meet and GreetSEGA has formally ruled out delaying the launch of Sonic Frontiers, and reiterated its “high expectations” for the upcoming adventure game to perform well when it launches this Winter.
Continue reading SEGA: We Have No Plans to Postpone Sonic FrontiersGeoff Keighley has announced that Sonic Frontiers will be receiving a world premiere neww look during Gamescom Opening Night Live!, which will run on August 23 at 7PM BST/2PM EST/11AM PST. Little else is currently known about this, though it will presumably show off some never-before-seen stuff from the game.
Fancy getting your hands on Sonic Frontiers before the game is out this Winter? Well if you live in the UK (that’s us!), you’re in luck, as there will be public playtests of the upcoming Open-Zone platformer at the EGX game show in September 2022.
Continue reading Sonic Frontiers To Be Publicly Playable at UK Games Expo EGXSomewhere among the many farming games, the 3000 hours of Persona games, and revisionist history PAC-MAN, we got a few more details on Sonic Frontiers:
Continue reading New Sonic Frontiers Footage in Nintendo Partner ShowcaseContinuing in IGN First’s coverage of Sonic Frontiers, prolific Sonic writer Ian Flynn spoke to IGN regarding his experience writing an entirely new Sonic game for the first time.
Continue reading Flynn Offers Sonic Frontiers Story Details in IGN InterviewPossible spoilers ahead of a returning character and new character(s). Be aware!
Continue reading RUMOR: Origins Datamine Hints At Frontiers Characters and MechanicsNew footage seen from Summer Game Fest appears to confirm that Sky Sanctuary will feature as one of the Cyberspace stages in Sonic Frontiers.
New images from the show, shared by Saihati72 on twitter, appear to confirm the Sonic & Knuckles stage, revisited in Sonic Generations, through the presence of the ascending Death Egg in the background.
While the zoomed-in footage is of low resolution, the image of the Death Egg is now undeniable.
Fans have been quick to point out previously that there are many similarities to the Generations design, to the point that it appears Frontiers may be using recycled assets from the 11 year-old title.
UPDATE: Another Twitter user has shared a second video that displays the stage a little clearer in the background. Thanks to ‘JL’ via email for the news tip!
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
Screenshot from @Tracker_TD via twitter.
In an interview with IGN, Sonic Frontiers Director Morio Kishimoto talked about the game’s length and difficulty curve.
In terms of length, Kishimoto confirmed that the game would be around 20-30 hours, with full competition taking roughly double the time. Kishimoto stated that the game’s length was part of the reason they decided to make Sonic upgradeable throughout the adventure, in order to keep players invested.
Kishimoto also talked about the differences in the difficulty curve between Frontiers and past Sonic games. Specifically, Kishimoto mentioned how Sonic games typically become more difficult as they progress, and how such a curve was no longer necessary with Frontiers:
“In previous Sonic titles, we had to gradually make the stages more difficult in order to reach an amount of play time that would satisfy players. It is natural for level-based platformers to become more difficult as you progress. However, for Sonic games the problem has always been that higher difficulty can get in the way of the game’s sense of speed. In Sonic Frontiers, the Open Zone offers a lot of content already, so raising the difficulty in order to increase the play time was no longer necessary. From start to finish, we were able to maintain a sense of speed with ideal level design for a Sonic game.”
For the full interview, check out the source below.
via IGN
In an interview with Axios, Takashi Iizuka confirmed that the team has been working on Sonic Frontiers remotely since the COVID-19 pandemic forced Japan into lockdown in 2020.
Iizuka had positive things to say about the team working remotely, noting that developers benefited from a safe working environment and that the ease of digital communication actually accelerated much of their work. Sonic Team has continued to work remotely ever since.
Iizuka has noted one negative impact of remote work, however: it’s difficult for everyone on the team to see the big picture. “If you’re just on the team, you’re kind of doing your own work,” said Iizuka, “And you don’t get to look over your shoulder at the other group doing the other work, so not everyone on the team shares the whole vision of what the game is.”
Iizuka also confirmed that development of Frontiers began as early as late 2017, as the team sought fresh ideas after hitting a wall with the old Sonic format.
Check out Iizuka’s full interview with Axios in the source below.
via Axios
A number of outlets seem to have additional gameplay footage following Sonic Frontiers’ appearance and hands-on impressions at Summer Game Fest. The footage itself looks to be samples for use with video impressions (such as NintendoEverything’s Hands-On), but the clean five minutes of footage has also surfaced (via SEGABits):
Among new views of the opening area, Sonic deals with a few more significant combat encounters that vary quite a bit. Sonic performs homing-attacks on a bipedal blade-wielding enemy, and counters its defensive move with some sort of rapid swing to get behind it.
In the following encounter, Sonic fights a towering drill enemy, breaking its lower segments and avoiding a spinning ring the enemy uses like a hammer. In both scenarios, a little white line (like some sort of spider-sense) appears to show Sonic when an enemy is about to unleash an attack. Further, both victories earn Sonic a “gear” that we’ve come to understand help unlock the more traditional stages in the game. A mysterious voice (not Amy) states “Use the gear as you have done before.”
A later encounter with a smaller enemy shows a distinct counter move, where after fighting a red ring-shaped enemy, it begins spinning like a top before Sonic deals a finishing blow with a cinematic kick.
Previously unseen world elements include platforms that elevate when you hit them with homing attack and a field full of monolith-style upright tablets. We previously saw changes in time of day and weather, but those features of the world are really highlighted here, with Sonic approaching the blade enemy as rain pools in the arena. Later, Sonic navigates floating platforms as the sun sets in the background. We’re also reintroduced to the large tower that Sonic scaled in the first IGN footage, but this time, Sonic runs further up one of the spires at the top to show off the scope of the land past distant cliffs.
Sonic Frontiers is still months away from release, and while this drip feed of info about this new play style has been frustrating, this new footage has a few small bits to be optimistic about if you’re looking for more involved combat and bizarre places to explore. Keep an eye out here on Sonic Stadium, as we’ll be rounding up the many hands-on impressions coming out of Summer Game Fest soon.
Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka has revealed that the studio’s past work contributed to Sonic Frontiers’ ‘Open Zone’ gameplay approach – and has expressed an interest in using learnings from the upcoming title to make a new entry in the Sonic Adventure series.
Continue reading Iizuka Reveals Hopes of Using Sonic Frontiers Work Towards Future Sonic Adventure SequelToday’s Sonic Central gave us a look at another one of the game’s massive bosses, which is giving off serious Starlight Carnival vibes. This new boss appears to move through the environment, leaving a path made out of energy in its wake. Eventually the path becomes an arena.
You can check out the 30 seconds of footage below:
SEGA’s long running series of animated Sonic shorts is set to continue with a new Sonic Frontiers animated special, Sonic Frontiers Prologue. Set before the events of the game, the special will focus on Knuckles. The sneak peak, shown during today’s Sonic Central broadcast, show’s Knuckles standing stoically in front of the Master Emerald during a rain storm. Check out a screenshot of it below:
Nothing else is currently known, but Ian Flynn did hint that something he is involved in would be shown, so it seems quite likely he wrote the script for this. We’ll update this article when the status of his involvement is known.
The IGN coverage thus far has left a lot of unanswered questions. Unsurprisingly, ten minutes of lightly edited gameplay footage without narration or context hasn’t proven itself to be a great way to premiere this game for the first time. We’ve seen a bit of the combat, we’ve seen a little world traversal, and we’ve seen more sky grinding than Final Rush and Rail Canyon’s unholy lovechild. But there’s some BIG aspects we still don’t know about. Big aspects like what the game is.
Continue reading Sonic’s New Frontiers: What We Still Need From Sonic’s First Open WorldThe Sonic news train just keeps on chugging. With the drip-feed of Sonic Frontiers news far from done, SEGA has decided to drop a sudden announcement of a Sonic Central broadcast happening tomorrow.
Continue reading Get Ready, A Sonic Central Broadcast Is Happening TomorrowSo, Sonic Frontiers gameplay has finally been unveiled, thanks to two videos this week that outlined two key concepts; exploration of the open world, and advanced combat techniques. Now that we’d had a chance to digest and absorb all the information, our gut reaction is… we didn’t… hate it?
Continue reading Sonic Frontiers Gameplay ImpressionsAfter Wednesday’s world navigation trailer, today’s new gameplay footage from IGN First shows off Sonic Frontiers’ combat mechanics:
Much like the previous gameplay reveal, the video is entirely show-don’t-tell. Sonic performs homing attack combos on a robot made of several balls, uses his new updraft ability to remove the armor of another baddy before attacking, and shows off a ranged air-kick move that looks right out of anime. Even the sidestep, a move previous Sonic games used to setup quick lane changes in long corridors, has some combat dodging potential here.
The enemy designs have bizarre and varying designs, from bipedal robots that turn into spears, to weird legged stalks with a heavy armor ring around them, to the massive three-armed pillar teased last year. Different enemies are susceptible to specific attacks, and to ascend a titan, Sonic used an updraft around one of its legs to throw it off balance, and needed to wall-run using only blue boost gates and avoiding red ones. Upon reaching the top, Sonic attacks giant spikes on its head to destroy its arms.
While we still have very little context around the game’s upgrade system, rewards for combat, and even its basic premise, today shows off a few new moves added to Sonic’s modern moveset and more variety in combat than previous combat-heavy Sonic games had. Here’s hoping the rest of June brings further revelations on Frontiers mechanics and mysteries.
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.
Now that we’ve had a small taste of Sonic Frontiers gameplay, we can now show you some high-quality screenshots and the logo for the game, courtesy of SEGA Japan.
Continue reading New Sonic Frontiers Screenshots and Logo Released by SEGA JapanWait, what? SEGA dropped the first gameplay video for Sonic Frontiers today, seemingly out of nowhere. The 30-second teaser finally gives us our first glimpse of what an “Open Zone” Sonic looks like and notes more details are coming throughout June on IGN.
Continue reading Teaser Shows First Sonic Frontiers Gameplay, More Details Coming Through JuneGamesRadar recently caught up with Sonic Team’s head Takashi Iizuka, to talk about what we can expect from the new Sonic the Hedgehog mainline title, due later this year.
While Iizuka remains tight-lipped about the detail of he drops tid-bits of information in the interview, including the introduction of “new combat styles” in the 2022 release.
GamesRadar were particularly probing about what Sonic Team have meant about “Open-zone freedom” and if this is the same as fully open world, but Iizuka still remains evasive:
“One of the biggest questions hanging over Sonic Frontiers is whether it will be set throughout a fully open world or whether the various biomes of Starfall Islands will be self-contained. SEGA has been careful with its language so far, referring to the 2022 release as being set in the ‘franchise’s first ever open-zone-inspired experience’ or explaining that it will offer ‘open-zone freedom’. When I ask Iizuka for clarity, he’s only willing to confirm that further details will be coming soon: “We don’t have too much more to share regarding the environment just yet, but stay tuned for more details this year.”
As always we will keep you up-to-date on any new developments with Sonic Fronitiers!
Source: GamesRadar
A true world adventure.
Continue reading Sonic Frontiers to Support 12 Language OptionsWhile it may still feel fresh in everyone’s mind, Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces were released in late 2017. We are four years divorced from those games (five by the time we get the next major release), with only one Sumo Digital racer and a piece of significant DLC between. We as Sonic fans don’t typically have to wait as long for the next big thing, even if the next big thing is a disappointment. We’re hungry, and we can’t stop thinking about what’s next.
2021 came with multiple new game announcements, a couple new trailers, and in spite of all that, we still don’t have a firm idea on what that next thing is.
May’s Sonic Central was a firehose of announcements, from the first official reveal of Sonic Colors: Ultimate to King Ice’s big gaudy necklaces to putting fictional doctors and athletes in Sonic mascot suits. But wedged in there were announcements for Sonic Origins, a collection of the core 16-bit Sonic platformers, and some sort of game where Sonic runs through the woods with digital effects (we now know as Sonic Frontiers). Despite these reveals, both slotted for next year, we have not actually seen their respective games. We’ve seen messaging, aspirations, and broad genre and style proclamations, but we’ve not seen an actual fully-formed game idea that will clearly go on to become a retail product.
While I don’t think the infamous Sonic Cycle has held real power for over a decade, SEGA’s marketing strategy remains as frustrating as ever: they seed teasers and extremely limited reveals long before they show any context, letting everyone’s mind go wild with possibilities before eventually grounding us in the reality of the game they are actually making. I’ve seen so many fans envision what Sonic Frontiers would be/could be/should be based on slow pans of landscapes and 4chan leaks from 2019, but the hard reality is that we still know very little of what that game is now and what it will be a year from now. The Game Awards trailer only contains three real pieces of information about the game:
1. The next Sonic game is open world.
2. It has open, natural environments with ancient-civilization-style points of interest dotted throughout.
3. There are one or more giant enemies.
At the very least, these core concepts have been around long enough that a CG animation studio (Marza or otherwise) was able to complete pre-rendered cutscenes for the trailer. What they don’t show during this trailer is what Sonic does, which, you know, is kind of important for a game. But the goal here admittedly wasn’t to show the game itself. The goal was messaging, and the message is, “We are working on the next game, and we’re winding up for a big risky swing.”
Weirdly, Origins is an even tougher nut to crack. We’ve either seen 60% of the game already if the collection compiles the Retro/Star Engine remakes (or some modification of them) while finally adding Sonic 3 & Knuckles to the lineup, or we’ve seen literally nothing if they’re using some other engine to recreate these games in 16:9. That said, development must have been incredibly early when SEGA announced it, since the Sonic Central reveal contains no actual video of the collection itself (as denoted by the “Original Gameplay” disclaimer in the corner and all the 4:3 footage of Sonic 3/Sonic & Knuckles).
In the same vein, we still know precious little about next year’s new animated series, Sonic Prime, save for some concept art we weren’t supposed to see. We know it’s some manner of multiverse show coming from Man of Action and WildBrain, two groups whose outputs vary wildly in quality and demographic aim. If there’s any room for more definitive feelings about a future Sonic project, the one space where we did get a trailer with plenty of information was for Paramount’s Sonic 2 movie. It’s more Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey antics, but with game references and Idris Elba. You probably already have a sense of whether or not that appeals to you.
I’m left excited and anxious for 2022, not because I can point to anything and say “I think this will be good” or “I think this will be a trash fire.” I just need to know. 2021 wasn’t an appetizer, it was looking at a menu and imagining the best and worst possible scenarios. Making a satisfying open world game is difficult and time consuming for any development studio, but Sonic Team certainly have plenty of time. Templates for really satisfying open world games exist, such as Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus, and the Frontiers trailer has an interest in both.
These 2022 projects are still a ways out, it’s worth reiterating that. But who can blame us for walking away from 2021 disoriented. We were told so much, and yet we were told so little. Until we actually have a clear vision of what next year’s games and cartoon are, we’ll be entering 2022 still waiting for trailers.
SEGA says quality beats discounts with Frontiers.
Continue reading Sonic Frontiers Was Once a 2021 Title, and Other Investor Q&A RevelationsNew game, same voices.
Continue reading “Sonic Official” Episode Confirms Return of Current Cast in FrontiersAs all but confirmed, the newest Sonic game, now officially titled Sonic Frontiers, had its first proper reveal at The Game Awards. It showcased both CG footage of Sonic running from mysterious robotic enemies, and some seemingly in-game environmental shots which definitely take things to a far more realistic art-style again.
Continue reading Sonic Frontiers officially revealed; out Holiday 2022, To Be Written by Ian Flynn [U]If you’ve been paying attention to our streaming schedule you already know about this, but we will be running a react stream for The Game Awards announcements tonight! Join GX and Nuckles87 as they patiently wait for the Sonic announcements!
It will run on our Twitch channel until sometime after both Sonic trailers have debuted. It will also be shown on both our front page and on SSMB. If you’d prefer to watch The Game Awards without our heavenly voices, you can do so here.
Games, the final Frontier.
Continue reading Next Sonic Game Confirmed to be Shown at The Game AwardsA Sonic Announcement has been teased for The Game Awards ceremony on Thursday December 9th… Could it be Sonic Frontiers?
Continue reading Sonic Announcement Teased for The Game AwardsA new official Sonic the Hedgehog website domain for Sonic Frontiers has been discovered, suggesting that a formal reveal could be happening soon.
Continue reading Official Web Domain Appears for ‘Sonic Frontiers’Well well, looks like we’re ever closer to the official reveal of the new Sonic game Sega teased earlier this year if this trademark is anything to go by.
Indeed, Sega has trademarked Sonic Frontiers both in English and Japanese back on October 22nd (you’re getting slow, fandom!), and this has happened a few times before. In the past, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors and Sonic Lost World for example had their trademarks registered and “leaked” not long before each were announced back in the day.
Via Gematsu.
