In the past few weeks, Sonic Team has shown off two new looks at Sonic Frontiers, giving fans a much clearer picture of the state of the game, even while the game’s initial first impressions may be hard to come back from. Both trailers highlight a variety of gameplay, showing the strengths of Sonic Frontiers in a way that its initial reveal certainly did not. Regardless of whether the game’s early marketing simply did it a disservice or its developers have been working overtime to address fans’ concerns, Sonic Frontiers appears to be significantly different now than it was a few months ago. Unfortunately, players have been burned by trailers before, and Sonic Frontiers‘ rocky first impression won’t be easy to cast aside.
When it was announced, Sonic Frontiers made waves due its open world – or “open zone” – gameplay, a drastic departure from the franchise’s usual formula. Conceptually, this sounded like an innovative development, but fans’ first look at its execution quickly drew criticism. Sonic Frontiers‘ gameplay trailer showed its biggest problem: the emptiness of its world. In the wake of the trailer’s premiere, fans decried the apparent lack of momentum, bland environments, and rudimentary combat. Since then, Sonic Frontiers‘ main objective has been to pick up the pieces of its reputation and cleanse fans’ palates, which these recent trailers might be able to do.
Open world games have developed something of a reputation for being unable to justify their massive sizes with enough content to fill the space. As such, when a franchise that hasn’t traditionally been open world announces plans to shift in that direction, fans are often understandably hesitant. Sonic switching to open world was an especially shocking move, as the series’ signature platforming and speed control would likely be difficult to maintain without the framework of purpose-built levels. The new Sonic Frontiers trailer stood in stark contrast to its predecessor’s stiffness and showed marked gameplay improvements, but a well-edited trailer could still be hiding long-term monotony.
Sonic Frontiers May Look Better, But How Much Has It Actually Improved?
Sonic Frontiers‘ gameplay reveal showed fans a Sonic with little to do. The hedgehog traversed dull, green fields and decrepit towers at a painstakingly slow pace, rarely running into literally on-rails sections that allowed him to build up speed. Deliberate movements aren’t necessarily alien to Sonic, but they are usually confined by platforming challenges and designed to allow skilled players to maintain their momentum. The person controlling Sonic in this demo appears to be doing their utmost to go as slow as possible, taking time to cinematically pan across a landscape that offers little visual spectacle. Even when solving puzzles or fighting enemies, the game felt unusually slow and banal. Many fans drew the conclusion that they were going to hate Sonic Frontiers based on that trailer alone, making any comeback the game could make all the more difficult.
The overview released by Sonic Team on September 1 smartly highlights more action-packed sections of gameplay, including dynamic combat, fast-paced platforming, and a variety of environments. As a trailer, it does a good job of addressing fans’ concerns, but the seams are still visible. Set pieces are all well and good, but the spaces between are still an unknown quantity. As an example of a well-executed open world, Marvel’s Spider-Man took full advantage of its protagonist’s unique abilities and made traversal arguably the most fun aspect of the game. Sonic Frontiers, on the other hand, runs the risk of squandering Sonic’s speed.
Another major concern about Sonic Frontiers comes from the game’s length. When asked how long Sonic Frontiers would take to beat, director Morio Kishimoto estimated between 20 and 30 hours for most players, while completionists could spend up to 60 hours playing. This makes Sonic Frontiers far longer than any of its predecessors, and begs the question of how the game will stay engaging for that long. Keeping all this in mind, even with its improved marketing, fans anticipating Sonic Frontiers‘ November 8 release should remain cautiously optimistic at best.
