It's been five years since the last mainline Sonic game, and Sonic Frontiers may be the series' most interesting release yet. What once started with a vague teaser of Sonic drawing a glyph in a forest is now what might be the most hyped Sonic title in a long time. In just the last few months, fans have been given tons of information about what can be expected from Sonic Frontiers, and some are things they might want to know before jumping head first into the adventure on the five Starfall Islands.
Sonic Frontiers stunned fans everywhere with its formal reveal trailer as it showcased the "open-zone" nature of the game, surprising a ton of future players. Fans had to wait a bit longer to get concrete news after that, but they were given the TailsTube YouTube videos in the meantime that ended up tying into the comic Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Convergence and the animated short starring Knuckles, Prologue: Divergence. The TailsTube videos, Convergence, and Divergence set up the story of the game, and fans certainly don't want to miss out of them before playing. Knuckles fans especially shouldn't sleep on Divergence.
Sonic Frontiers' Story
The story picks up shortly after Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Convergence ends. Sonic, Tails, and Amy are headed to the Starfall Islands in search of the Chaos Emeralds a strange wormhole appears and sucks the Tornado in. Sonic wakes up afterwards on Kronos Island, one of the very islands he was flying to after players run through a small starting level. A mysterious voice praises Sonic for freeing himself out of Cyber Space before telling him to gather the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic, with a lot of questions on his mind, heads off with what little direction he has.
During his adventure, Sonic runs across an AI known as Sage. Taking the form of a human girl, she's the AI at the end of the Convergence comic that Dr. Eggman was using to extract the power of "the Ancients." As Sonic ignores Sage's warnings to turn back lest he put the world in danger, he finds Tails and Amy, along with Knuckles who was trapped in the Divergence short, only they're digitized versions of themselves. Fans are meant to walk into the story with just as many questions as Sonic has, but the fact that Frontiers is written by Ian Flynn of Sonic comic fame gives fans hope that those questions will eventually be answered.
The Gameplay Loop in Sonic Frontiers
Just as the voice instructs Sonic to do, the main goal of the game is to find Sonic's friends and gather the Chaos Emeralds. However, the Emeralds are locked away in strange vaults. In order to get the keys to these vaults, players once again have to brave the Cyber Space realm that they started the game in. The levels of this realm should feel familiar to fans, as a majority of them re-use old Sonic level designs and are meant to represent Sonic's memories.
Once the game properly begins, players will complete puzzles scattered around the islands to unlock new sections, points of interest, and to find Sonic's friends. As fans explore, they'll run into bigger and tougher enemies. These enemies will reward Sonic with gears that unlock the Cyber Space stages. Once fans get the Emeralds from the vault, however, they can take on the huge Titan bosses of each island as Super Sonic. Players shouldn't get too comfortable with this gameplay loop, however, as there's room for things to change later in Frontiers.
Sonic Frontiers' Customization
Sonic Frontiers offers a fair but of customization. Like Sonic Colors: Ultimate, Frontiers allows fans to dress Sonic up in different shoes and gloves, and maybe other outfits, too. However, this customization goes beyond Colors: Ultimate, which only offered different colors for the accessories, and Frontiers offers entirely new options. What's possibly the most exciting of these options are how Sonic Adventure 2's Soap Shoes are back as limited DLC for newsletter subscribers.
On top of that, players can customize just how Sonic's speed works as well to make sure the controls are just how they like it. Fans can control numerous settings such as steering sensitivity, Sonic's top speed, boost speed, and more. If first impressions from events like Summer Game Fest are anything to go off of, players may be asked to adjust these sliders the moment the game starts. Even if they're not, they most likely can be found in the game's settings. However, these sliders do warn that they may not apply to certain skill upgrades.
There's a few details about Sonic Frontiers that fans will have to discover as they go, such as how the trailer showcasing Sonic Frontiers' ending song shows a robot possibly stealing a Chaos Emerald back from Sonic. Players may have to gather the Emeralds and then fight to keep them safe, which would be a change of pace compared to how they're usually kept once they're obtained. It's understandable that Sega would want some secrets of Sonic Frontiers to remain secrets, as the developers have been clear that the mysterious theme is intentional.
Now that players are up to speed, they should prepare themselves for the long haul as Sonic Team has publicly stated that Sonic Frontiers has more content than any Sonic game that came before it. Sonic Frontiers supposedly takes 20 to 30 hours to beat, and it'll take even longer if fans aim for completion. There's a strong chance there are elements to this game that haven't at all been revealed yet, which should make this a rather fun adventure for those who aim to go in blind. As Frontiers has been built up to be a bold new direction for the series going forward, one can only hope that it sticks to its promises for the sake of Sonic's future.
Sonic Frontiers will launch November 8 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
