According to Sonic Team, the upcomingSonic Frontierswill contain the most amount of content in the series to date. While past games were linear and level-based, this game is open world. WithSonic Frontiersintroducing an open-world structure to the franchise, there should be a variety of activities provided for the player to participate in.
While the game had rough first impressions, subsequent appearances anddemos ofSonic Frontiersat Gamescom have propped the game up in a more positive light. According to previous statements from Sonic Team’s creative officer Takashi Iizuka, this focus on the “open-zone” gameplay is the main draw of the game, with plenty of other activities being thrown in such as linear cyberspace-themed levels and fights with Titan bosses. In an interview with Italian gaming website Everyeye, he states there’s more content in here than any otherSonicgame before.
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Iizuka states that in order to accomplish this, theopen-zone areas ofSonic Frontiersneeded to have an appropriate number of activities that could grab a player’s attention while exploring. In particular, he mentioned he wanted the Starfall Islands to feel “stimulating” enough for players. This includes the addition of mini-games, such as Big the Cat’s fishing sidequest or the number of puzzles dotted around the Islands of the game. He noted that in concerns of where to put these in these open areas, careful consideration was taken in order to keep the player’s curiosity hooked.
These comments of the game’s content seem to line up with past statements from the dev team regardingSonic Frontiers' playtime. As stated previously by the game’s director, Morio Kishimoto, players will take roughly 20-30 hours to beat the main story. He offers that it will likely take double that length if players were dedicated enough to completing the game and seeing everything that it has to offer.
The range of activities and optional challenges should also indicate the amount of ambition that Sonic Team is employing with this game. Even the linearcyberspace stages ofSonic Frontiersare only going to consist of one-third of the game’s playtime, with most of the focus being spent in the game’s open areas. While there are some fans are still concerned over the game, many are excited and hoping thatSonic Frontierscan live up to its lofty ambitions and deliver a solid adventure with the blue blur.
Sonic Frontierswill launch on November 8 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
