SEGA and the Sonic Team finally unveiled the next mainline game in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Sonic Frontiers, at The Game Awards last month. Judging from the teaser trailer which was shown at the event, the game will be an ambitious open world 3D Sonic game. Speaking to investors, SEGA says that Sonic Frontiers was originally meant to be released in 2021, however they decided to push it back to make sure that it fully lives up to gamers expectations, unlike other more recent 3D Sonic games.
SEGA told investors that they have spent a lot of time conducting analysis on Sonic Frontiers to make sure that it lives up to fans expectations and does the long-running franchise justice. Therefore, they have announced that they have introduced game testing “based on external evaluations” and that the team at SEGA feel as though Sonic Frontiers is shaping up to be very promising and that internally they have “high expectations” for the 2022 game.
SEGA has also told investors that because of their confidence in the final product they will be selling Sonic Frontiers as a full price game, unlike other games in the series, which have been given a discount upon release. SEGA concluded by saying that they are fully “focusing on quality” and that they are committed to spending a significant amount of money on the development and marketing of Sonic Frontiers. Now, let’s hope that the Sonic Team can pull it off. Sonic Frontiers launches later this year.
“Originally it was planned to be released on this year, the 30th anniversary of Sonic, but we have postponed the release for a year in order to further brush up the quality. Not only for this title, but during the development phase, we have been steadily conducting analysis to improve the quality of the title before release, such as introducing game testing based on external evaluations, and I have a feeling that it will become a good game and have high expectations for it.”
SEGASammy Investor Q&A
“For the pricing strategy, we feel that we are at a point where we need to rethink. For example, for the new Sonic game, as we are focusing on quality and spending certain amount of money on development, we think it is important to maintain the price by maintaining the value of the IP at high level, rather than simply lowering the price at early stage to increase the number of unit sales.”
SEGASammy Investor Q&A
Many thanks to Greatsong1 for the news tip!
clap I hope it pays off.
Well it took them long enough to learn this lesson. Hope the game is successful. It would be a shame for them to improve their development patterns only to have another failed game. I want to see a run away success like Sonic Mania a couple of years back. If so, maybe they’ll start considering taking time to fully polish all their games going forward.
Yes same here. They have rush their games in the past including Sonic for not polishing it perfectly but this change will finally be improved if SEGA nail this game.
I remember one time ago that Aaron Webber says that future Sonic games will have longer development times which he truly meant it in anyway. Maybe now they will finally take the time on rethinking there mistakes from past Sonic games.
SEGA has been trying to get the franchise back on track for a few years now by creating a new in improve Sonic game with new gimmicks and create something completely new. Fans don’t want the same stuff over and over again, they are expecting new from Sonic Team to bring to the table. I’m still hoping this game will become a huge success this year and SEGA finally learn their lesson this time.
Well the sonic adventure format worked perfectly for me tbh. A nice hub world with stage levels.
They’ve always had trouble dealing with sonics speed. It could be as great as the Mario 3d games but they never figured it out.
I have hopes for the game, I want them to finally get it right again
Unleashed was the perfect game that dealt with sonic speed, after that they totally screw themselves over with boost to win om stages that cajn barely last for 2 mins.
Look at it this way, unlike Nintendo at least they don’t want 19 years to make a new Sonic game.
I’m enjoying Metroid Dread by the way. I know I’ll have to wait 25 years for the next Dread game. Yet I know every 3 years a new Sonic game debuts.
Yeah, and look at how that’s worked out for Sonic: mediocre game after mediocre game.
Believe it or not, constantly shitting out new games for a specific franchise tends to impact the quality of said games.
We’ve seen this happen time and time again by this point.
Oh cool, I was hoping to see you here. Knowing our differences with the Sonic franchise I was wondering:
Did you like the Frontiers sneak peak, and does the idea that they delayed this game a year bring you any kind of hope for it to not be mediocre?
Personally I can’t help but be optimistic despite Sonic Forces burning my optimism after it released. What about you?
Nice theory there.
Well it certainly looks “different” from what Sonic’s done in the past. Going the fully open-world route is always a risky decision for any franchise, and not one that often ends particualry well.
Though regardless I’m still interested in seeing where this game goes with the concept.
The decision to delay the game is a somewhat good sign, but it really depends on how well they use the extra time they’ve been given, and whether it’s enough to make something truly great here. Open-world games are notoriously hard to make, and I’m not sure if these devs are up to the job.
So yeah I’m not gonna lie, I don’t really have much faith in SEGA and The Sonic Team to deliver on their promises here.
But, at the very least, they’re showing that they do at least care about the game and want it to be truly something special for their fans.
So I don’t mind giving them the benefit of the doubt. For now, anyway.
I don’t have much faith either. Being a fan of this series, you’re better off keeping your expectations at an all time low.
I can go on and on about how much potential this has and what I’d like to see, but I won’t set myself up for disappointment again.
Sonic Team seems to possess the magical ability to take any game that has potential and turn it into a flop.
Dang mobile never notified me that you replied until just now. Anyway, yeah that’s totally understandable. I want to believe in them, and I’m excited by the ambition they seem to be showing for the game, but I can’t help but be pessimistic/realistic. Everything you said about open world games is true, and I’m not sure if the team is actually up for it. I know Yakuza is well liked, has ambition, and it’s a SEGA game, but whether or not Sonic Team can make something good like that is another story. For me at the very least it will probably still be a decent time waster when it releases even if it’s bad/mediocre, but I really hope that it can be something grand
Ahhhh shut up already!
Glad they’re not rushing this to market. Hopefully that extra dev time pays off.
While it’s great to see Sega taking the initiative to push the sonic franchise further and to sute this game gets as much care and time in to its devloperment as possible, your article on this is pathetic, I came here for news not opinions.
The article is perfectly fine as is.
@Gman92: This article by Sickr is not pathetic by any means. Its fine as it is and this is news since its mainly about how Frontiers was meant to release last year but got delayed to increase quality.
Don’t be rude for no reason.
Then you should stay out of comment sections.
What opinion is there besides maybe saying it’s ambitious? If you’re talking about the comments, then take CFG’s advice,
I’m gonna kiss Amy rose if she eats a cheeseburger.
Uhh ok?
Based
About time they stop being obsessed with anniversary releases
True that.
I know right? Giving the fact that they learn from there mistakes just like Nintendo learn from their mistakes from the Wii U system. I’m still not getting my hopes up until I see a gameplay for Sonic Frontiers first.
They can talk as much as they want about wanting to improve quality and having high expectations for the game’s impact on the series, but at the end of the day it’s been the same thing with every game post-generations. They talk all this, but fail to deliver and learn from their blatant mistakes.
“For the pricing strategy, we feel that we are at a point where we need to rethink.” LOL, but they didn’t rethink anything. Talking about how they need to “maintain the price by maintaining the value of the IP at high level”. Yeah the value of the Sonic franchise is nowhere close to a high level. The series has been on thin ice for years, so having this release at $60 is either going to be an instant pass to most and a hit-or-miss to the rest because of the reputation. The die-hard fans and first-time fans are obviously going to buy on instinct, as they have with every bad sonic game (Lost World, Boom, Forces, etc)
I dunno about them, but it would’ve made more sense to “[lower] the price at early stage to increase the number of unit sales”. Pretty sure the majority of the fanbase has given up on the games, so lowering the price would give them all an incentive to give the franchise one last chance, and increase sales. It’s a win-win, but there goes sega’s counterproductive logic again lol.
I’m gonna be honest: when frontiers was first announced, I was more than a little skeptical about it being successful. But after reading this article (and deciding to indulge my inner optimist), I am actually a little hopeful that Sega and Sonic Team will get it right this time.