Megathread Sonic Frontiers (2022) | MT | General Discussion (DO NOT discuss leaks here please)

[Detective Kaito]

I think Sonic Team has consistently proved that they don't want Sonic's movement to be physics based, and Frontiers will be no different.

[Shiny Gems]

35 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

I think Sonic Team has consistently proved that they don't want Sonic's movement to be physics based, and Frontiers will be no different.

I am not entirely sure on the “want” part, but regardless, I think physics based movement won’t be in Frontiers, too.

[BubbleButt TV]

4 hours ago, Detective Kaito said:

I think Sonic Team has consistently proved that they don't want Sonic's movement to be physics based, and Frontiers will be no different.

idk i feel like they were making really good progress with modern Sonic in Generations and it's just a bit sad how all of that work just... immediately got thrown out...

i don't know how Morio Kishimoto views this series and what he even wants Sonic to be but i hope he realizes that he needs to approach a game like Frontiers with a new point of view

[Scritch the Cat]

So, this might sound quibbly, but am I the only one a bit worried by the fact that there was absolutely no gameplay in that trailer?  Arguably it's not unusual for the first trailer of a game not have any, but frankly, if that isn't unusual that seems really stupid to me given these aren't movies, and furthermore, with this series there is more to prove about the gameplay.

Even putting aside the ongoing question of whether physics will be well-done in this game, a major concern is just how easily Sonic Team can make something of this scope that actually renders and runs well.  I said in the pre-reveal thread, and I stand by, that while open-world Sonic is a good (albeit not original) idea, I don't exactly trust Sonic Team to make the jump from railroaded, walled stages, right to this.  I think we need evidence they can do something that is fully 3d but a more conventional level, before they can be trusted to make a huge 3d world.

As for other stuff: The tone is wrong.  Seriously, game developers everywhere, not every open-world game these days needs to be as depressing as Fallout; just as not every open-world game before needed to be as irreverent as Grand Theft Auto.  Moreover, it feels like the whole "civilization is all-but destroyed" thing is at least partially an excuse not to populate an open-world.  That feels cheap anywhere, but it's not always inappropriate.  But in Sonic it feels inappropriate because its levels are usually filled with "stuff".  Arguably gimmicks are what help define Sonic levels, and while this game may not have levels in the traditional sense (outside of those virtual ones), there's no excuse for its environments to have so few interesting things in them.

Sorry to go here, but so far as I've seen, at least some fangames have done this better.  Maybe not open-world Sonic per-se, but fangames have done better making wide-open 3d Sonic levels that still have a commendable amount of Sonic stuff in them.  That, and I know they run well.  This literally looks like they put Sonic into someone else's game, and I get that the story is supposed to be about him finding himself in a mysterious new world, but again, why is that the story?  Why are they making a Sonic game that feels so depressing?

[Cosmos Rogue]

You're not the first person here frustrated by how little Sega has shown us of Frontiers, but to be frank, Sega's marketing has done it's job so far. The hardcore fans, the people who will pay attention to a game for a year or even longer before it comes out, are paying attention to Frontiers, as evidenced by this very thread. In the future Sega will release gameplay and story trailers, media sites will post articles about their hands on time with the game, and the masses will hopefully be persuaded by what they see and hear to buy the game.

You are right that Sega and Sonic Team have earned zero benefit of the doubt with Frontiers, but this marketing strategy is pretty much standard operating procedure, annoying as that is.

[Wraith]

7 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

You're not the first person here frustrated by how little Sega has shown us of Frontiers, but to be frank, Sega's marketing has done it's job so far.

I actually disagree. They didn't show the Frontiers trailer at a stream specifically for Sonic fans. It was at The Game Awards, and it doesn't really seem like anyone outside the hardcore fanbase's curiosity was piqued.

Things could still change later on but right now I feel like they're going to be hurt for not leading with a more impressive trailer.

[Sega DogTagz]

6 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Things could still change later on but right now I feel like they're going to be hurt for not leading with a more impressive trailer.

I disagree. Just considering the amount of pessimism that has built up post forces, there is practically no "first look" they could have shown us that wouldn't be ripped to shreds.

If Frontiers has some good ideas that are worth out time of day, then I would say that their best bet would be to hold off showing anything of value until they are ready to provide a much more deep dive into some aspect of the game we can get excited about. If no such excitement exists, then the same strategy of show nothing should still be employed at this stage.

 

Sonic Team isn't selling anybody anything on a trailer at this point. They are going to have to earn some credibility back and no 1:10 trailer was going to do that.

 

I think ST got their hands forced by whatever is happening with Origins. I think it was clear that it was the game that was supposed to piggy back on the movie hype, but due to it being most likely delayed, they were forced to show something else and they played it safe.

[Blue Blood]

38 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I disagree. Just considering the amount of pessimism that has built up post forces, there is practically no "first look" they could have shown us that wouldn't be ripped to shreds.

If Frontiers has some good ideas that are worth out time of day, then I would say that their best bet would be to hold off showing anything of value until they are ready to provide a much more deep dive into some aspect of the game we can get excited about. If no such excitement exists, then the same strategy of show nothing should still be employed at this stage.

Sonic Team isn't selling anybody anything on a trailer at this point. They are going to have to earn some credibility back and no 1:10 trailer was going to do that.

I think ST got their hands forced by whatever is happening with Origins. I think it was clear that it was the game that was supposed to piggy back on the movie hype, but due to it being most likely delayed, they were forced to show something else and they played it safe.

Sonic is a hard sell to a lot of the mainstream gaming community. You can call it bias, or you can call it warranted skepticism based on decades of lacklustre games. There's a bit of both in there, and Sonic is neither special nor unique in that regard. But that trailer at the GAs was an opportunity for SEGA to get millions of people to see a Sonic trailer that otherwise wouldn't have given it a moment of their attention. The trailer ended up being a bit of CG that's mildly interesting at best, and then several panning shots of Realistic Open World: The Video Game (otherwise known as "Breath of the Wild: Nintendo Hired That Man" ). The trailer failed to capitalise on the opportunity it had. As a Sonic fan who's interest is almost always piqued by a new game and is looking forward to learning more, the trailer was fine for me. But for everyone else, it didn't do the job. 1 minute was plenty of time to show a glimpse at some new Sonic action to actually intrigue an extended audience.

And the fact that it's now been a clean two months since that trailer with absolutely no news, it's going to have fallen off radars too. SEGA flubbed. 

[Scritch the Cat]

8 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Sonic is a hard sell to a lot of the mainstream gaming community. You can call it bias, or you can call it warranted skepticism based on decades of lacklustre games. There's a bit of both in there, and Sonic isn't sorbitol nor unique in that regard. But that trailer at the GAs was an opportunity for SEGA to get millions of people to see a Sonic trailer that otherwise wouldn't have given it a moment of their attention. The trailer ended up being a bit of CG that's mildly interesting at best, and then several panning shots of Realistic Open World: The Video Game (otherwise known as "Breath of the Wild: Nintendo Hired That Man" ). The trailer failed to capitalise on the opportunity it had. As a Sonic fan who's interest is almost always piqued by a new game and is looking forward to learning more, the trailer was fine for me. But for everyone else, it didn't do the job. 1 minute was plenty of time to show a glimpse at some new Sonic action to actually intrigue an extended audience.

And the fact that it's now been a clean two months since that trailer with absolutely no news, it's going to have fallen off radars too. SEGA flubbed. 

You know, I may get a hate mob on me for this, but after that ceremony felt like such an endless deluge of pretentious trailers crafted mostly to demonstrate how "epic" they were, I actually would have preferred if the Sonic trailer we got was full of Pontaff humor.  That isn't my absolute ideal; nowhere close, but what we saw there was a letdown just because it made Sonic feel like it was trying to imitate current trends, and really, when has that ever worked?  Arguably the last time that worked was when Sonic was created and his early games were made from the ground up to capitalize on the Extreme Sports craze of the 1990s.  Arguably, the Wisps are an attempt to be more like Mario and maybe it worked in terms of reviews and sales, but you know; I really wish it hadn't worked.  For the record, Takeshi Iizuka flat-out admitted Wisps were invented so you didn't have to play as other Sonic characters, and for that reason I will always resent them.

Meanwhile, it may be true that this game's actual gameplay isn't at the point that they have anything really impressive to show off, but if they don't have that yet, can they really be sure this game will be ready for release by the end of this year?

[Wraith]

I mean, we kept asking for them to ditch the jokey shit and they did.

[Blue Blood]

35 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

You know, I may get a hate mob on me for this, but after that ceremony felt like such an endless deluge of pretentious trailers crafted mostly to demonstrate how "epic" they were, I actually would have preferred if the Sonic trailer we got was full of Pontaff humor.  That isn't my absolute ideal; nowhere close, but what we saw there was a letdown just because it made Sonic feel like it was trying to imitate current trends, and really, when has that ever worked?  Arguably the last time that worked was when Sonic was created and his early games were made from the ground up to capitalize on the Extreme Sports craze of the 1990s.  Arguably, the Wisps are an attempt to be more like Mario and maybe it worked in terms of reviews and sales, but you know; I really wish it hadn't worked.  For the record, Takeshi Iizuka flat-out admitted Wisps were invented so you didn't have to play as other Sonic characters, and for that reason I will always resent them.

Meanwhile, it may be true that this game's actual gameplay isn't at the point that they have anything really impressive to show off, but if they don't have that yet, can they really be sure this game will be ready for release by the end of this year?

I guarantee that you would not be saying this if that actually happened. 

And regarding the state of the game and whether or not its in a position where they could show it off, I sincerely doubt that it was in an presentable state back in December. It won't be completed yet and things could still change, but plenty of the game is almost certainly presentable this far into development. At least enough for 1 minute trailer. SEGA is choosing not to show it because its not part of their marketing plan at the moment. And considering that they had an opportunity to do so at the GAs, I'll again just reiterate and say that they flubbed it. Remember that this game has been extensively focus tested already. It's well beyond the formative stages. 

[Razule]

I truly believe they haven't shown gameplay because they simply don't want to yet. Not much is going to change between now and when they start revealing more in a month or two. 

[Sega DogTagz]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

and then several panning shots of Realistic Open World: The Video Game (otherwise known as "Breath of the Wild: Nintendo Hired That Man" ). The trailer failed to capitalise on the opportunity it had.

You can do worse than have people speak of Frontiers in the same sentence as BotW....

 

If the point of that trailer was to connect those dots, then it was undoubtedly a success. That feels intentional to me. The more people who think of this as a departure from the game before it, the better. And they were able to do that without providing a second of game-play to prove any of it. 

 

If general consensus is Sonic BotW as opposed to Sonic Forces 2, then the advertising department did their job

[Blue Blood]

12 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

You can do worse than have people speak of Frontiers in the same sentence as BotW....

If the point of that trailer was to connect those dots, then it was undoubtedly a success. That feels intentional to me. The more people who think of this as a departure from the game before it, the better. And they were able to do that without providing a second of game-play to prove any of it. 

If general consensus is Sonic BotW as opposed to Sonic Forces 2, then the advertising department did their job

The consensus is "oh yeah, they did show off a new Sonic game after the trailer for the movie. I don't really remember it though".  

In a sea of open world games, Sonic is doing nothing to stand out. It's aping the visual style and themes of the kings of the genre and doesn't do anything to bring a unique flair to it. Frontiers is being compared to other games because there's absolutely nothing notable about it yet except that it looks different to other Sonic games, if you really care enough bother looking at Sonic. It's more exactly a good thing when all people can say is "it looks like it's copying something that Sonic has by morning on common with".

And then comparing it to Forces is really something that only Sonic fans are going to do. Nobody else really cares about or remembers that game. It was just another Sonic game that was neither especially good nor especially bad. 

[MH MD]

5 hours ago, Wraith said:

I actually disagree. They didn't show the Frontiers trailer at a stream specifically for Sonic fans. It was at The Game Awards, and it doesn't really seem like anyone outside the hardcore fanbase's curiosity was piqued.

This is blatantly false, for a lot of people i know that aren't sonic fans, actually got interested for the idea of an open world sonic game, that idea alone piqued their interest when they didn't care about sonic before

 

in fact, let me just show you this, backing my words with actual stats

 

it was one of the most viewed trailers in the game awards, out of a tons of games that got shown there, it was top 3, eclipsing even more known games/IPs out there

 

i know people getting impatient with lack of news and such, but the marketing actually worked, SEGA didn't flub it

 

5 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

 

And the fact that it's now been a clean two months since that trailer with absolutely no news, it's going to have fallen off radars too. SEGA flubbed. 

2 months? that's nothing, some popular games get YEARS before showing any news, both Elden Ring and BOTW2 in fact....completed 2 whole years of radio silence after reveal before showing another trailer, in that 2 years timeframe, there were no news, people could say "it fell off radars" , but that doesn't mean people weren't interested, it's just that....there was nothing to talk about really, people were like "oh yeah they showed BOTW2 teaser, don't really remember it tho"

meanwhile, Sonic Frontiers won't even complete 2 years between reveal and release

[Scritch the Cat]

4 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

I guarantee that you would not be saying this if that actually happened.

If the game was nothing but that, you're right.  Had the big reveal been just another semi-railed boost game, with Pontaff humor, then yeah, I'd be annoyed.  But even Pontaff occasionally make me laugh, and had they put more of that in a trailer that made clear it was an open-world game, I'd indeed like it better than what we got.  This is not an objective judgment of quality but I'd rather a Sonic game be silly to the point of being occasionally stupid than somber to the point of being boring.

4 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

You can do worse than have people speak of Frontiers in the same sentence as BotW....

 

If the point of that trailer was to connect those dots, then it was undoubtedly a success. That feels intentional to me. The more people who think of this as a departure from the game before it, the better. And they were able to do that without providing a second of game-play to prove any of it. 

 

If general consensus is Sonic BotW as opposed to Sonic Forces 2, then the advertising department did their job

A friendly reminder that people frequently also spoke of Shadow the Hedgehog in the same sentence as Ratchet and Clank, Halo, and Devil May Cry.  The details of those sentences made it clear that was not flattery.  Read on...

4 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

The consensus is "oh yeah, they did show off a new Sonic game after the trailer for the movie. I don't really remember it though".  

In a sea of open world games, Sonic is doing nothing to stand out. It's aping the visual style and themes of the kings of the genre and doesn't do anything to bring a unique flair to it. Frontiers is being compared to other games because there's absolutely nothing notable about it yet except that it looks different to other Sonic games, if you really care enough bother looking at Sonic. It's more exactly a good thing when all people can say is "it looks like it's copying something that Sonic has by morning on common with".

And then comparing it to Forces is really something that only Sonic fans are going to do. Nobody else really cares about or remembers that game. It was just another Sonic game that was neither especially good nor especially bad. 

Yes; this is it exactly but with one additional gripe: We knew about this synopsis for many months.  So for a whole trailer to be based around the fact that this is open-world, and almost nothing else, means it hardly feels like we got a trailer at all.  As it stands, this trailer did elicit memories of BOTW, but in the cheapest way imaginable; by giving us a shot of Sonic standing on a cliff with a big view, as somber music plays.  That does absolutely nothing to demonstrate that it plays anything close to as good, and incidentally, making such a game work is a lot harder than just making a BOTW-like world and shoving Sonic into it.  BOTW's world design suits Link partially because he starts fairly weak and immobile and has to build up his abilities to explore it better, and partially because he has a wide arsenal of weapons to make battling enemies fun.  What's Sonic got?  So much speed that a lot of the map might as well not even exist, and not deep enough combat to make it innately better with enemies.

And again, that tone.  Yes, this doesn't feel at all like Forces, but you know what Sonic game it does remind me of?  06.  Yes, I am going here and you best believe many other gamers will, too.  As Blue Blood said, Forces has been mostly forgotten, because it's not good enough to be beloved but not bad enough to be hated.  It's almost an anomaly as Sonic games go these days, in that Sonic fans are probably madder at the game than anyone else is because it botched so many things fans found dear but to everyone else it's just white noise.  But this game doesn't look mediocre; it looks like it's fronting so hard it hardly even lets on it's a game, and it's easy to resent that.  All the more so because Sonic Team is making it.  Still more, because last time they gave us something this dead-serious and this obsessed with visually impressive cutscenes, it was 06. 

And mind you, I know there are many people who are sick of Sonic Team being so afraid of 06's reputation that they avoid everything even associated with it, and in fact I'm even among such people; ideally I'd like to see Sonic Team revisit the ideas of that game but competently.  But here's the thing; I don't really see either here.  The serious tone and realistic graphics are not what I valued in 06; I valued it because I wanted to play another Sonic Adventure game that was bigger and better.  What I got was smaller and worse, but still a Sonic Adventure game.  This is not.  It doesn't have anyone but Sonic playable, so far as we can see, and thus not the gameplay variety that comes with them.

That's a point that deserves elaboration: Why expect Sonic fans to cheer that this game isn't like SF when the narrative most Sonic fans have espoused for decades is "Sonic games aren't as good as they used to be"?  If SEGA wants easy goodwill, it shouldn't just avoid making games like ones people disliked; it should make a game that is reminiscent of a Sonic game from the past that was well-loved.  But this is just more experimentation; more attempt to reinvigorate the franchise by shoving in something that it thinks is cool.  For over two decades that has divided the fandom against itself in the best of times, in the worst most of them united in disgust at an innovation.  But in a bigger picture way, it's almost better when an innovation is like fishing or guns and becomes so hated it's retired instantly, compared to things like the Boost and Wisps that got their start in well-received games so now most of the subsequent games conform to their mold.

Do I hate this game?  No.  I can't hate this game because I have been given nothing to hate about it, and furthermore very little to remind me it's even a game.  But I resent the choices SEGA is making.

[Jango]

I'm glad we at least moved from taking about Sonic's quills lenght.

[BubbleButt TV]

I still just want to know why did the footage stutter and why did they leave that as the opening shot in their reveal trailer for their big new game...? lol

[Wraith]

5 hours ago, BubbleButt TV said:

I still just want to know why did the footage stutter and why did they leave that as the opening shot in their reveal trailer for their big new game...? lol

Personally I found this really annoying, but its probably not a big deal to most people. A lot of initial showings of games are rough performance wise.

I just think they should have shown Sonic doing....something, to sell the concept of the game. Anything.

[Blue Blood]

4 hours ago, BubbleButt TV said:

I still just want to know why did the footage stutter and why did they leave that as the opening shot in their reveal trailer for their big new game...? lol

The fidelity of each shot in the trailer seems to bounce around. The grass in the first shot looks awful and you can count the frames on the water. But later shots look beautiful. It's bizarre. At this point, I just need to see the game in action. A proper trailer would be nice, but raw gameplay footage be even better. And here's hoping we don't just get 40 seconds of running in a straight line. 

@MH MD Games like Elden Ring are BotW aren't really comparable in BotW in that regard. Those are huge games that set the gaming sphere on fire and we're never expected to released until years after their initial announcements. 2 months is considerable for a game from a franchise that's constantly struggling to curry favour with a wider audience and a game that currently doesn't have much identity of its own. Not to mention it's got a release window set already.

6 hours ago, Jango said:

I'm glad we at least moved from taking about Sonic's quills lenght.

*for now 

[light-gaia]

17 hours ago, Wraith said:

I actually disagree. They didn't show the Frontiers trailer at a stream specifically for Sonic fans. It was at The Game Awards, and it doesn't really seem like anyone outside the hardcore fanbase's curiosity was piqued.

Things could still change later on but right now I feel like they're going to be hurt for not leading with a more impressive trailer.

I disagree. I've seen a lot of YouTube channels not related to Sonic covering Sonic Frontier's reveal trailer. Arlo, for example, and he said he is excited to Sonic Frontiers even though he is not a fan of the franchise.

The Game Awards is a much bigger event than a live stream only focused on Sonic fans, and the fans are going to buy the game anyway, Sega doesn't need to focus their marketing efforts on fans, they need to show the game to the general audience. They are doing a good job so far.

Furthermore, showing the game on big events like The Game Awards is much more expensive than showing on a smaller event only focused on Sonic fans. This is an evidence that Sonic Frontiers has a bigger marketing budget than other recent entries.

 

5 hours ago, Wraith said:

Personally I found this really annoying, but its probably not a big deal to most people. A lot of initial showings of games are rough performance wise.

I just think they should have shown Sonic doing....something, to sell the concept of the game. Anything.

They are still going to show. It's very common to not show much in reveal trailers. This is not a bid deal. Sega doesn't need to show everything now, the game is only going to release in the end of the year.

[MH MD]

4 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

@MH MD Games like Elden Ring are BotW aren't really comparable in BotW in that regard. Those are huge games that set the gaming sphere on fire and we're never expected to released until years after their initial announcements. 2 months is considerable for a game from a franchise that's constantly struggling to curry favour with a wider audience and a game that currently doesn't have much identity of its own. Not to mention it's got a release window set already.

 

Don't think that's really an excuse, Elden Ring was a bit of mystery at time actually, if it was not for the leaks we would barely have any information about it, other than "oh it's a new From game, it could be sekiro-like or dark souls 4, who knows really, this is just a pretty teaser" -this is not far from Frontiers situation when you think about it, thanks to the leaks-

 

for other examples, you could think of Square enix games in general, they always announce their games too early, except...they also don't have the benefit of the doubt, recent FF games have mixed receptions at best, with the whole 13 trilogy thing, and what do they do? announce FF7 Remake, then wait 4 whole years after the initial announcement before even showing the gameplay, people were not happy, people were skeptical for the ability of SE to produce a great game ,rightfully so, even if it was the long-awaited remake to a beloved entry

 

or how about bethesda, with their latest masterpiece being Fallout 76, yet people still interested in Starfield, game announced ages ago, or Elder Scroll 6, a game announced in....2018? and STILL have no other information, people expecting it to release like 2026, that's an obscene amount of time

 

point is, the marketing for Frontiers managed to actually pique people's interest in a way that previous games didn't, they don't have to like release gameplay every month to "keep people's interest", they will be back when the next trailer drop and looks good, it's not like the wait of 2 months will kill the game momentum or anything, especially when it's scheduled to release at the end of 2022, and it's not like people don't have other things to care about in the meantime

 

in fact, given how those 3 first months of 2022 are this STACKED with big games released, it's actually smart to not release new info at this time cause it will just get drown, between games like Horizon 2, Elden Ring, Dying Light 2, who have time for sonic news really

 

Even nintendo was smart enough to do the same with BOTW2 or Bayo3 and not release new info for it in the latest direct, when it's just so far away, they just focused on first-half titles of 2022

[Diogenes]

I can't give Sega any praise for the trailer regardless of if it got people talking, because it's a trailer that told us almost nothing from a series that cannot be trusted. I can only imagine people care because it's Sonic, and Sonic, inexplicably, keeps being given another chance, not because anything in the trailer was worth getting excited about.

[light-gaia]

14 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I can't give Sega any praise for the trailer regardless of if it got people talking, because it's a trailer that told us almost nothing from a series that cannot be trusted. I can only imagine people care because it's Sonic, and Sonic, inexplicably, keeps being given another chance, not because anything in the trailer was worth getting excited about.

It's not because ST can't be trusted that they would have to show everything about the game in the first trailer. This is not how marketing strategy works. And the numbers of the trailer only shows that most of the audience aren't as skeptical as most of you are, and the general audience that matter the most for Sega.

Let's be real, the general audience don't spend all of their time searching for Sonic news and leaks, and discussing in forums about the franchise. 2 months is nothing for them.

[Diogenes]

I'm not asking them to show everything, I'm asking them to show anything.