Sonic Frontiers was teased last year as the first entry in the series to go open world. While the initial trailers show a vast and diverse world, it had nothing to show in terms of gameplay. Now, with a new trailer being made available, we get a short glimpse of what that is like.
The trailer is just over half a minute, including the obligatory publisher and developer intros. It starts of with showing Sonic having at least two running speeds, which is followed by the blue rodent running on what looks like a hamster wheel. The pulsing effect suggest that it’s some sort of map unlocking sequence, like what you’d expect from Ubisoft towers.
Immediately after, there’s some combat showcase, including launchers and air combos, though the mechanics of these are not explained yet. Then there’s some more traversing, this time in the form of rail-sliding. And finally, there’s what can be surmised as a boss fight of sorts. The mechanics here in Sonic Frontiers are reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus, and other games with large scale bosses – you wait for an attack, you climb the boss as it recovers from said attack, and attack a weakpoint equivalent at a high-up spot.
Beyond that, there’s nothing much that’s new. In terms of the map, the earlier trailer shows a lot more variety in the different biomes, and this new one takes place entirely in one of them.
The trailer ends the same way as it did before, by showing the platforms Sonic Frontiers will be available on. Which are both generations of the PlayStation and Xbox consoles, the Nintendo Switch, and PC. Still no release date for the game, so all we have are the remains of the end of 2022 window.
(Source: Sega / YouTube)
