News Sonic Frontiers: Online Survey Leaks from November 2019

[Blue Blood]

New news, new thread, right? Let's collect the latest bout of leaks in one place. 

Original Source

This is what the OP has to say:

Quote

You probably won't believe me, but I did an online survey on several ideas for videogames.

One is Super Mario Oddyssey 2, and one is a new sonic game set in the "Starfall islands". (There are several other name prototypes).

The sonic game is on Switch don't know if it's a multiplat or exclusive

Obviously, we now know that Frontiers is set on the Starfall Islands. That makes this pretty convincing. OP then goes on to post a few images of slides that they were shown, specifically for Concept E, Concept K and some prospective titles.

Now there are a few things to note with this. First of all, this survey dates back at least as far as November 2019, which is a year and half before the game was first officially teased and three years before it's actually set to be released. Absolutely anything and everything could have changed between then and now, and between now and the final release.

Secondly, the first credible leaks I believe were posted in 2020. (Would someone clarify that for me, please?) It's likely at this time that Sonic Team was deep into developing the engine and general framework for Frontiers, but it was still very much on the drawing board. The final scope of the project hadn't been decided upon. The purpose of these surveys and focus groups it a gather ideas and get a feel for what game the audience want. Concept K sounds almost nothing like the game as we know it to be today. Either they were really lost and didn't know what sort of game they were making, or it was a fake concept design to throw people off the scent. 

We don't get a huge amount of new information here, but everything in Concept E is likely the real deal. 

[Indigo Rush]

>Sonic Freerunner

@azoo please report to the thread, you're needed for questioning

[azoo]

Just imagine my face the moment I read that. The combination of perplexion, amusement and more perplexion. What the hell LOL

 

[Rabid-Coot]

Wish I got this instead of the ones about mobile games.

[Dejimon11]

Assuming this is all real and it’s looking like it is then the biggest take away is MARIO ODYSSEY 2 CONFIRMED BABY! 

[Iko]

What's the chance of this being fake? (maybe someone manipulated the date of the posts or something I don't know). I mean, it's pretty accurate to what Frontiers seems to be, but there are a lot of things that just feel wrong about it.

BTW in case it's real, I hope the amount of islands is unrelated to the amount of friends you have to save, else it's definitely just Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy. It says "The Sonic Universe characters you love" so it seems to hint at more than just that, but still.

The online multiplayer one sounds like the concept for a mobile game and it might still happen at some point.

[BubbleButt TV]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

 

 

there's also a fan game called Sonic Freedom lol

that fan render used in concept K makes me wonder if they were genuinely testing the waters to see if people would want a Sonic re-design with fur in the games. If so, thank god they decided against it.

Sonic having amnesia in Frontiers might actually be true. In the reveal trailer he looked kinda scared and confused which is unusual for Sonic since he's usually confident and brash

[Blue Blood]

21 minutes ago, BubbleButt TV said:

that fan render used in concept K makes me wonder if they were genuinely testing the waters to see if people would want a Sonic re-design with fur in the games. If so, thank god they decided against it.

It's more likely that the survey was outsourced from SEGA to an external company who would generate and process all the data on their behalf. They would have found and used than image, not SEGA. 

[Postmodern Sonic]

Desperate to learn more about the other concepts omitted by the leaker. Although this does make me worry a bit, if they were still deciding on a project back in Late 2019 wouldn't that mean the game has only been in development since 2020? Getting "Forces had four years of development time even though it turned out basically being two" flashbacks.

[Razule]

I think Sonic's amnesia pertains to how he got to the island, not his whole life. He wakes up and has a lot of questions because he has no idea where he is or what brought him.

[Blue Blood]

49 minutes ago, Postmodern Sonic said:

Desperate to learn more about the other concepts omitted by the leaker. Although this does make me worry a bit, if they were still deciding on a project back in Late 2019 wouldn't that mean the game has only been in development since 2020? Getting "Forces had four years of development time even though it turned out basically being two" flashbacks.

No. What we've learned from other focus tests and can glean from this survey too is that the game was deep in development, but they were still forming the project. I think that they did their internal work planning any developing the game, developed the prototype, conducted market research and then finalised the direction of the game based on that research. 

[BubbleButt TV]

 

lol

I'm guessing this game will start with Sonic waking up on that cliffside with no idea where he is and throughout the game you're guided by a mysterious voice.

or maybe the amnesia concept has been dropped since then

[PublicEnemy1]

1 hour ago, BubbleButt TV said:

Spoiler

Sonic having amnesia in Frontiers might actually be true. In the reveal trailer he looked kinda scared and confused which is unusual for Sonic since he's usually confident and brash

 

Crackpot Theory Time...

Given that Flynn is writing this... what are the chances IDW Issues 31 and 32 were sorta testing the waters for this kind of plot?

[Wildcat]

I would love if the games added fur to Sonic. Ive never seen that picture before but it’s awesome.

Why would anyone be against fur/spines? It gives him so much detail without actually changing his appearance plus he’s a hedgehog. It makes sense.

[BubbleButt TV]

43 minutes ago, Wildcat said:

I would love if the games added fur to Sonic. Ive never seen that picture before but it’s awesome.

Why would anyone be against fur/spines? It gives him so much detail without actually changing his appearance plus he’s a hedgehog. It makes sense.

lmao there was once a time where I thought this exact thing

I've come to realize that fur just does not work on Sonic's model. Anytime someone slaps fur on Sonic's model it always looks nasty as hell. His mono-eye is inherently cartoonish.

It only worked in the movie because sonic had a major redesign to make it work.

Ideally Sonic should be stylized. Forcing him to look realistic is the wrong direction.

[MH MD]

1 hour ago, Postmodern Sonic said:

Desperate to learn more about the other concepts omitted by the leaker. Although this does make me worry a bit, if they were still deciding on a project back in Late 2019 wouldn't that mean the game has only been in development since 2020? Getting "Forces had four years of development time even though it turned out basically being two" flashbacks.

Based on this video , there was even a very vague hint/leak from 2018 that mentioned the open world/islands, and he just confirmed that he knew all along, if it was not just some wild lucky guess, then that means they already had an idea about what they were doing and what direction the project was having and started developing it at time, they were just fine-tuning the finer details afterwards with multiple focus tests and such.

 

So no such things as "taking years to develop the engine" 

[NoKaine]

It's very promising if Sonic Team has been this sure about the premise and concept of the game since nearly its inception. I want to say that Forces suffered not only from the actual lack of full development, but that they basically had to restart development going from Wars to Forces, though I'm not sure about the latter.

[Milo]

Wow, this has to be the earliest leak of Frontiers so far, isn't it? I imagine this flew under the radar for so long since it didn't have the "Rangers" working title like the playtester leaks did; but given that this also talks about having an open world design, I'm surprised this didn't pick up traction like the other leaks did when Frontiers was first revealed.

The fact that the game was mentioned to be in development for Switch this early (to the point the surveyee floated the possibility of it being a Switch exclusive) also intrigues me. Wonder if this means it is indeed the lead development platform after all. Though given the level of fidelity of the graphics shown in the trailer, I have my doubts.

The most bizarre thing though is that the Sonic render shown in the Concept K picture is actually fanart--one of the replies to the OP's thread found the source and pointed it out as grounds for calling the whole thing off as BS, only for it to not be the case!

And yay, Mario Odyssey 2!

[Wraith]

5 minutes ago, A Cup of Hot Milo said:

 

The fact that the game was mentioned to be in development for Switch this early (to the point the surveyee floated the possibility of it being a Switch exclusive) also intrigues me. Wonder if this means it is indeed the lead development platform after all. Though given the level of fidelity of the graphics shown in the trailer, I have my doubts.

 

It's possible Sonic Team tried to impress with the PS5/XSX version of the game and that the original version has scaled down lighting and textures.

Or that they just released bullshots.

[The Deleter]

15 minutes ago, Wraith said:

It's possible Sonic Team tried to impress with the PS5/XSX version of the game and that the original version has scaled down lighting and textures.

Or that they just released bullshots.

The Nintendo version of the trailer is the only one that has the "Not Final Gameplay Footage" disclaimer below it, so I doubt it's the switch version if the others get by without the disclaimer

[azoo]

EDIT: Wrong topic, please delete

[Wildcat]

4 hours ago, BubbleButt TV said:

lmao there was once a time where I thought this exact thing

I've come to realize that fur just does not work on Sonic's model. Anytime someone slaps fur on Sonic's model it always looks nasty as hell. His mono-eye is inherently cartoonish.

It only worked in the movie because sonic had a major redesign to make it work.

Ideally Sonic should be stylized. Forcing him to look realistic is the wrong direction.

I understand the movie gave him a “real” 3D body to account for the fur but using fur in games would still fit because many non-live action cgi characters in movies are just cartoons with fur put on. They do not look nasty or anything. They look perfectly fine.

[Razule]

I don't think this scrapped 06 model looks bad at all. The fur's subtle enough a less detailed in-engine would look too bad in comparison. The CGI Werehog's fur wasn't awful. I mean, it's the Werehog, but still. 

[Ratcicle King]

this does match up with one sticking point from the original ''Sonic Rangers'' leak that had me a bit unsure of its veracity: The Super Sonic mechanic.

 

The Rangers leak said something about the final boss being a robotic tree you fly around as Super Sonic and it was pretty buttonmash-y, it was one thing that felt odd to me, why the heck would the prototype used for research and testing have the final boss? This pretty much matches what was said there and complements it enough that now the picture is much clearer, Super Sonic in here isn't an unlockable extra or a final boss thing, it's a mechanic to fight these titans in boss fights, and the Rangers leaker assumed it was the final boss since Super Sonic boss fights are usually the final fights.

This is pretty curious, because it shows they have a few ideas to shake up the formula, hope not all bosses are Super Sonic exclusives, but having him fighting the titans would be a sure way to give the game some spectacle to keep things interesting.

[BubbleButt TV]

8 hours ago, Razule said:

I don't think this scrapped 06 model looks bad at all. The fur's subtle enough a less detailed in-engine would look too bad in comparison. The CGI Werehog's fur wasn't awful. I mean, it's the Werehog, but still. 

people always bring this one up and I'm sorry if this is harsh but I do not see why people think this looks good.

what looks good about it? the fur is just haphazardly thrown on and clashes with his cartoonish eye. there's no consistency either, why does he have fur on his chest but not his arms or muzzle?

You really just cannot put fur on Sonic's model and call it a day. It's not as simple as that. You have to give him a major overhaul to his design and then you have to go through the trouble of redesigning ALL the characters

does Vector now have scales like a real crocodile? does Espio now have wrinkly skin like a real chameleon? does Rouge get fur, but only on her head? 

be careful what you wish for lol I think there's a very good reason why they scrapped this. They went with their better judgement.