Sonic Frontiers announced an animation short called Sonic Frontiers Prologue back in June, set to star Knuckles the Echidna as a way to set up the game's storyline. Now, with just a week to go before the game's released, the six-minute animation offers fans quite a bit of new information to take in.
The short is beautifully animated by Powerhouse Animation Studios, the same studio responsible for Sonic Origins' new cutscenes. It calls back to the story of Sonic Adventure, focusing on the wholesomeness of Knuckles being gentle with the Chao that call his island home, and sets up huge story beats that may signify a huge shift in established Sonic lore.
Sonic Frontiers and Knuckles' Past
In Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Divergence, fans see Knuckles doing what he has always done: guarding the Master Emerald on Angel Island. In a way similar to the introduction of his solo story in Sonic Adventure, Knuckles is questioning just why he's the guardian of the powerful gemstone. He wonders what came before his ancestors, the Echidna race of the Mystic Ruins. As he explores Sky Sanctuary Zone from Sonic & Knuckles, he finds a portal gate that looks broken, but still teleports him to the Starfall Islands.
Considering how much Knuckles thinks about why he's the guardian and who controlled the Master Emerald before him, it's worth looking deeper into his monologue. Making the viewer wonder what Knuckles wonders asks them to pay attention. The inner dialogue about knowing Angel Island's every weakness also serves to explain why Knuckles has never found the portal before, which helps suspend the player's disbelief and better fit the series' continuity. Knuckles was thinking about what came before his kind, and ultimately the entire short sets up that the Ancients of the Starfall Islands predate the Echidna.
Sonic Frontiers' Ancients May Change Everything
Not much is known about Sonic Frontiers' "Ancients," that's one of the few mysteries Frontiers has yet to reveal. Fans are aware of which characters to expect, who the supposed villains are, the general plot, and what three of the five islands are like. The Ancients are most likely the civilization that built everything found on the islands, such as the Cyber Space portal that Knuckles activates in the short. However, there's not much evidence toward this yet.
Regardless, the short makes it a point to say that there's a strong connection between Knuckles wondering who came before his tribe and the Starfall Islands. As Knuckles asks who came before, he finds the remnants of the civilization that may be his answer. Even though the Ancients aren't mentioned directly in Divergence, they are mentioned in the Sonic Frontiers prequel comic, Convergence. Their similar titles act as further hints to players that there are connections to be made here.
If the Ancients truly are the civilization who owned the power of Emeralds before the Echidna, that means that they built the Master Emerald shrine and learned how to harness their energies. With talk of the Ancients predating the Echidna, there's a high chance that learning about the Ancients might mean learning the origins of the Chaos Emeralds.
The Chaos Emeralds are one of the few Sonic staples that haven't been explored deeply. If the origin of the Emeralds is finally explored, it could change everything about the world of Sonic. While there's a chance it won't entirely explain how the Emeralds came to be, Divergence implies that fans will learn about the civilization before Knuckles' ancestors in Frontiers. As the animated short is written by Ian Flynn, the same person writing the story of the game, fans can expect there to be weight behind the connection between the Echidnas and the Ancients. Fans only have a week until they find out what that might be.
Sonic Frontiers will launch November 8 on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.