In what little of Sonic Frontiers has been shown, the community is buzzing at the prospects of the ambitious title. Sega is keeping most of its cards on Sonic the Hedgehog's next adventure close to its chest, but it has spoken about a few things though, like how Sonic's movement will work.
While fans got a sneak peek at the game in 2021, Sonic Frontiers was officially revealed at The Game Awards 2021. While the trailer lacked formal gameplay, Sega did show a sizzle reel of open environments, or rather, an "open-zone" Sonic game. A game of this caliber seems like the perfect way to have celebrated Sonic's 30th anniversary in 2021, but having learned from its past mistakes, Sega held the game back to ensure its quality. Infamously, Sega rushed out Sonic the Hedgehog 06' in order to meet the series' 15th anniversary.
In an interview with GamesRadar's Josh West, Sonic Team's creative officer Takashi Iizuka provided some new information on Sonic Frontiers, particularly how Sonic's movement will work. According to Iizuka, figuring out how to translate Sonic's speed and combat abilities into larger levels was one of Sonic Team's greatest challenges during Sonic Frontier's development. The solution, apparently, was to expand on Sonic's moveset. "With Sonic Frontiers, we'll introduce new combat styles to bring Sonic's signature dexterity onto the battlefield, and the new exploration options obviously play into his iconic speedy nature," Iizuka explains.
As West mentions in their write-up, Iizuka is being very particular with their words here, in order to not give too much away. They do not disclose what any of these moves look like or how they work, though fans can probably imagine some of the changes that are required to get Sonic to work fluently in open 3D environments.
The last major shake-up in Sonic's movement came with 2013's Sonic Lost World, giving the player much more control over their speed through the implementation of a "run" button. More generally, Sonic has used the boost formula for the last 15 or so years, with games like Sonic Lost World being an outlier.
It should not come as a surprise that Sega is modifying Sonic's movement for Sonic Frontiers. Considering Iizuka refers to both Sonic's combat and explorative abilities, chances are Sonic Frontiers will have a variety of new features that allow players to maintain their speed while either fighting or going off the beaten path.
Where some Sonic games have faltered in the past is either not being fully designed around new mechanics, or simply not doing enough with them. From what Iizuka says, though, it seems like Sonic Team has things under control.
Sonic Frontiers is in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: GamesRadar