Interested in learning what’s next for the gaming industry? Join gaming executives to discuss emerging parts of the industry this October at GamesBeat Summit Next. Learn more. Sonic Frontiers is planning to come out this holiday season for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But fans have been debating […]
Sonic Frontiers is planning to come out this holiday season for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But fans have been debating if it should. Most are reacting to trailers, but I had a chance to actually play some of Sonic Frontiers during the Summer Game Fest Play Days event last week. And what I tried has promise. Running around an open environment with Sonic can feel freeing and fun. I also enjoyed the combat, which manages to mix Sonic’s speed with modern action game basics like combos and dodging. But there’s also room for concern. While running, grinding and dashing through the world feels good, movement gets more awkward when you slow down. At one point, I wanted to jump to the roof of a ruined temple. Maneuvering Sonic during tighter platforming like this can feel rough, especially when objects feel like they have random hit detection. Speaking of hit detection, I also fell through the ground and died after beating a boss. These kinds of bugs aren’t unusual for a game that is still in development, but Sonic has a history with these kinds of problems. It’s concerning. Basically, what I played was promising but unpolished. While at the Summer Game Fest Play Days, I also had a chance to talk with Sonic Frontiers creative officer and longtime Sonic series shepherd Takashi Iizuka. I asked him about taking Sonic in this new direction and if he thinks Frontiers will hit its holiday launch target. GamesBeat: What was most difficult when it came to translating Sonic to this more open world design? Takashi Iizuka: This is really speaking to the difficulties in making these games. But both the classic Sonic games, and even the more modern Sonic games, they all had a start and a goal. We put Sonic somewhere. We know where he’s going to go. In between we fill that space with a lot of platform action. Through that design, we’re able to encapsulate the high speed action and get Sonic to the goal while you have a fun time. But the challenge that we have now, now that we have this huge 3D open area, the open zone gameplay we need to create has to encapsulate that same high speed platform action we experienced up to now in every Sonic game, but in this wide, expansive 3D format. It was a lot of making sure that the open zones still featured the high speed platforming and the action, all in this brand new format. GamesBeat: Is it hard judging just how fast Sonic should be in this kind of open game? Iizuka: If you slow down Sonic, you’re missing some of the essence of Sonic. We couldn’t really slow him down.
