News Ian Flynn to pen the story for "Sonic Frontiers"

[Wraith]

 

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

The best possible news we could've gotten. Can't believe it took this long for SEGA to finally get their shit together and hire Ian for a game project, given his history, experience, and reputation throughout the fanbase. 

[Kuzu]

Glad I can just watch the game on Youtube. 

[Razule]

It's about damn time. 

I thought I'd be a lot more excited about this when it happened, but there's too little info right now.

[Blue Blood]

I'm so thrilled to see that this is finally a reality. The man knows his Sonic lore, his Sonic characters and how to put them into a good story. This is amazing. 

[VO.SUPER]

I am looking forward to seeing how Flynn's involvement will shape the narrative. Even if he can't affect the gameplay, he can at least try to build around the open world.

And if there is a genre that can benefit from lore dumpage, it's open world stuff.

[Soniman]

Just now, Blue Blood said:

I'm so thrilled to see that this is finally a reality. The man knows his Sonic lore, his Sonic characters and how to put them into a good story. This is amazing. 

He's also someone who's VERY AWARE of the character issues fans have had that former pontaff team refused to consider. He pretty much wrote the book on proper characterization for these characters for over a decade now. He's not perfect and he certainly has faults but damn it he's the best we got 

[Zaysho]

If there's one thing I can be excited and happy for, it's Ian getting his W. He's worked so hard for the past 15 years creating some wonderful stories for the Sonic universe in Archie and IDW, even turning me around on characters I didn't care for (whether from the games or in-comic). I'm still a little hesitant with the trailer not showing anything of substance (I'm sorry, I just wanted gameplay) but this is still major as far as I'm concerned.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Seriously?!?!!?

My goodness…

Nearly a decade and that sonuvabitch finally became a writer for the game!

I can only hope Sega doesn’t have a tight leash on him, because he really doesn’t need it. That was the only reason I didn’t want him writing the games, because otherwise they could not have found a better candidate thus far.

Looks like that Flynn4Sonic campaign worked out!

[Dr. Detective]

That took way longer than it should have.

The fact that it finally happened does give me hope that things, at the very least, have the ability to get better.

[KoDaiko]

OK, I was somewhat skeptical about the news, but...

I guess this confirms?

[Blue Blood]

Just now, KoDaiko said:

OK, I was somewhat skeptical about the news, but...

I guess this confirms?

It was already confirmed. 

[KoDaiko]

Just now, Blue Blood said:

It was already confirmed. 

I mean, outside the article. I heard certain places may/can publish false info.

[PublicEnemy1]

We're eating good tonight

[Razule]

It's possible they could have been mistaken, bigger mix-ups have happened. Good to hear from the man himself. 

 

[Kuzu]

Please Sega just let Flynn have complete creative control. 

[NoKaine]

They're not going to put him on the game if they're going to restrict him hard.

It's one thing when he works on the comic books, which that medium for Sonic has a very notorious history when it comes to... creator oversight... but a game would have less mandates, I imagine.

He needs to work in the confines of what Sonic Team is making, which is already a limitation. But from there, I assume he may have a lot of power.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

It's probably worth mentioning that the way IDW is handled in comparsion to Archie may be why Ian landed the job. He's gone on point before saying about how the IDW job required him sitting down with Sonic Team/SEGA staff, and Iizuka to run through the initial plotline of the first year of IDW, so it's possible that positive working experience finally convinced SEGA to just give Ian the job.

[KoDaiko]

How does the game writing work for Sonic anyway? I vaguely remember someone (Ian?) saying the general storyline/flow is set, and they just need to write the dialogue? How much meddling is in there?

[Sega DogTagz]

Somewhere. Right now, Penders is kicking a puppy in pure jealousy.

 

Very happy with this piece of news. Probably the biggest reveal we got on the game today considering the rest was of the teaser variety. Its nice to have a guy in the room who understands the characters and knows which traits to play off of in order to make them entertaining. We saw how much of a difference having an inside guy at the table made with the movie when Hesse came on board, and Flynn has been doing this for even longer with the comics.

 

While this might ensure that we get a tongue-in-cheek "True Dat" from Tails in the future, I fully expect that he will have enough sense to reach across the table and slap whoever pens the next disaster and tries to bring that weak sauce to the final script. I actually feel like I can trust at least one guy with a hand in the script and that is more than I can say from... practically any point in the history of the franchise.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 minutes ago, KoDaiko said:

How does the game writing work for Sonic anyway? I vaguely remember someone (Ian?) saying the general storyline/flow is set, and they just need to write the dialogue? How much meddling is in there?

Depends on the game. Lost World's plotline for example, IIRC was created entirely by Potac and Graff.

[VO.SUPER]

11 minutes ago, Ryannumber1Santa said:

It's probably worth mentioning that the way IDW is handled in comparsion to Archie may be why Ian landed the job. He's gone on point before saying about how the IDW job required him sitting down with Sonic Team/SEGA staff, and Iizuka to run through the initial plotline of the first year of IDW, so it's possible that positive working experience finally convinced SEGA to just give Ian the job.

The books actually premiering in Japan too probably has something to do with it too.(Worldwide in general.) This makes Flynn just a bit more relevant to SEGA on both sides of the pacific.

[Johnny Boy]

At long last, the pontaff era is behind us. I’m really excited to see what Ian does for the games story.

[Blue Blood]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1Santa said:

Depends on the game. Lost World's plotline for example, IIRC was created entirely by Potac and Graff.

I'm pretty sure that with Lost World they were given a vague outline by ST, most importantly including the Deadly Six, and they had to build on that framework. I think that they may have been the ones to push for Orbot and Cubot to come back as well? ST didn't want them, but the writers insisted because they (unfortunately) proved so popular in Colours. They had more freedom with SLW than the other games, but it was still a case of ST getting them to write the story that they asked for. 

Writing the story is probably approached different from game to game. It wasn't a priority for Colours, Generations and Lost World, for example. It was quite manageable to give an outline and ask Warren and Graff just to come up with the dialogue. I'd guess that with the way Frontiers looks to be handling its world and story, the story was planned out very early on. Flynn has probably been involved almost since the word "go". 

[Razule]

Quote

"In Sonic Frontiers, Sonic’s long-time nemesis Dr. Eggman discovers an ancient technology on the Starfall Islands and installs his AI program SAGE to hack in and take over. But there is more to this technology than he realizes, and unintended consequences immediately come to bear. Sonic must race against time to discover the truth, save his friends, and maybe even save himself at the same time," says a press release. 

https://www.vg247.com/sonic-frontiers-2022-announcement-trailer

Story info seems relevant here.