In May of 2021, we were teased with the existence of the next 3D Sonic the Hedgehog title. Seven months later, we were teased with the existence of the next 3D Sonic the Hedgehog title, now with a title – Sonic Frontiers. Yesterday, we were teased with the existence of Sonic Frontiers by seeing thirty seconds of gameplay footage where Sonic ran, jumped, and spun in the air around enemies.
Today, we were teased with the first seven minutes of proper gameplay footage.
So, what do we know? Sonic can run, jump, and boost across very large plains. There’s a bird who shows up on screen sometimes. Sonic can run on walls! That’s neat, right? There’s a lot of rails that go places. And there’s puzzles near signs with question marks. Coins that look like they came from Super Mario Odyssey. And hearts! And…other things…that have yet to be identified.
For seven minutes of footage, we haven’t learned much more than what we already knew. In some ways, the thirty seconds we saw yesterday were more dynamic, showing off actual combat. The video we got today? Oddly empty. Now to be fair, there could be more enemies and obstacles in the final version of the game. After all, the second teaser showed sweeping shots of the environments without any of the trademark sonic accoutrements, but we know there are plenty of rings, springs, and dash pads sprinkled about. There are some cuts in the footage as well, so Sega could be hiding certain things until later.
IGN’s video does promise new Frontiers info all month long, so hopefully what we learn in the coming month soothes any fears one might have on the status of the game. Until then, one can only rampantly speculate on how the open-zones will unfold.
4 Comments
is that title supposed to say Revealed? lol
whoops
I absolutely GUARANTEE that there is far more to show about the game than this first video has shown, and that it was deliberately both Sega’s and IGN’s plan to go about it this way, because it was obvious they were deliberately avoiding interacting with certain things. My guess is that this first video was intended to show Sonic’s movesets and how navigating the open world would look/feel like, to give viewers a frame of reference of how both would work before moving onto the more detailed and heavier stuff later. It’s probably not unjustified either, because this is really like no previous Sonic game at all, and I’ve already noticed some appearing to be struggling to find the right frame of reference for the game since they can’t just compare it directly to past Sonic titles by default like usual.
It actually frustrates me a great deal that so many fans are not only failing to see all that (something I think is quite obvious), but are also acting like that’s really ALL the game is from this one video, completely overlooking the fact that Sega has more to show, and judging (and dooming) the game preemptively already when they still barely know anything in depth about it.
They sure have “reveled” some gameplay, but I’m not reveling in it. If their alleged Big Game is going to be this unpolished and empty throughout, then they shouldn’t even bother with open world next time.