The New ‘Sonic Frontiers’ Gameplay Trailer Shows Off Its Open World

Sonic Frontiers is maybe the boldest direction SEGA has taken their mascot hedgehog yet. No stranger to trying something new, Sonic’s gameplay has changed many times since his jump to 3D, but never before has he been thrown into a fully open world. That is going to change with the expected release of Frontiers sometime in 2022.

With this change to open world, there have been plenty of questions about how SEGA planned to take a character who has always been in very linear games and put them into an expansive free to explore location. Also, how did they plan to keep Sonic’s iconic speed while also making this world feel large and fun to explore? On Wednesday, everyone got a chance to take a look for themselves at what was in store for Sonic in his next adventure.

There are two major details that stick out. The one that I personally noticed before anything else was that this looks like they just blew up a few Sonic levels, spread them out, and created a fun place to let Sonic traverse. Everything appears to be designed for constant momentum so the more skilled players will always find new rails to grind on, new speed ramps to run on, and towers to climb.

The other notable detail is that Sonic sticks out in a very odd way. The world has a hyper realism that Sonic’s cartoonish design doesn’t really fit into. Of course, anyone that’s been a fan of Sonic since the Sonic Adventure days probably doesn’t find this to be that odd. This artistic decision could be potentially off-putting, especially since the world itself doesn’t have the greatest graphics in the world. Fans that want their games to look as good as they play might not be happy with what we’ve seen so far.

Of course, this is only just a trailer and with no set release date yet there is still plenty of time for changes to be made to the game before its eventual release date.