Coming soon, Sonic Frontiers brings the popular Blue Hedgehog to a brand new open-zone gameplay.
This is certainly a pretty big shift from previous Sonic Games, and to find out more, we interviewed Takashi Iizuka, head of Sonic Team.
Izuka-san discussed this brave new frontier for Sonic, the challenges it created, the relationship with the team that worked on the films, and the growing fan base they’ve brought to the franchise.
Giuseppe: I feel like lately it’s been less challenging to please the fans with 2D Sonic, while for 3D Sonic games it’s been harder to please the fanbase. Your team always seems to be looking for new things and finding the right recipe to make it happen. Are you sure this is the right one, the one that will finally make the fans happy?
Takashi Iizuka: Sonic Frontiers represents modern Sonic gameplay. It’s in the 3D format that we’ve taken to the next level and developed that 3D gaming experience, turning it into what we have for Sonic Frontiers. The 2D gameplay has 30 years of history and it’s that classic original content that we understand the fans will love and appreciate.
We have a good understanding of what they love about 2D Sonic. And basically this year we released Sonic Origins, which is that 2D offering for those fans who really appreciate that content.
But when we talk about trying to make the fans happy with the content we provide, we never try to release one game that will make our 2D fans and our 3D fans happy at the same time.
When we released Sonic Forces, we also had Sonic Mania. We had a supply of 3D games and a supply of 2D games. We will do the same this year.
We want to make sure we deliver the game to the fans who like that kind of content, so we released Sonic Origins in June and later in November we’ll release Sonic Frontiers for the 3D fans.
Giuseppe: You kind of made a kind of open-word game. Was it a challenge getting Sonic to work with it?
Takashi Iizuka: Until now, fans were familiar with the linear design of the previous games. Back then, the team was thinking about how to make Sonic feel good, fast, and cool. We believed we really needed Sonic to travel on a linear path. Much of the time spent on development was on “how can we make this linear path he’s walking on feels good when he’s running really fast”
When we talk about 2D Sonic or 3D Sonic from the last 30 years, we really believed they needed a pad and the pad was really what made the game, but we really wanted to get away from that.
For the past 30 years, that’s brought us all this great content, but when we think about progress, we really need this open design so that people can run around and do things they want to do, and that’s where the “open zone”- concept for this game was born. We spent a lot of time on it. It’s not easy to just make a world and drop Sonic into it and make it feel good. So we spent a lot of time iterating, making something , test, see if it felt like Sonic was running really fast, and if it felt nice, and then toss it and try again until we got it right.
Giuseppe: When I first played Sonic Frontiers, it certainly felt very different from anything you’ve done before. Previous 3D Sonic games felt a bit like an attempt to translate 2D Sonic into 3D rather than their own thing. Is this your attempt to fully diversify the two options to see if it works and is embraced by the fans?
Takashi Iizuka: We wanted to make a whole new game, and that was our intention from the start. We’ve created a lot of linear gameplay and people like it, but we want to take it to the next level and develop it, and that open-zone format is exactly what we wanted to do from a design perspective too from the start.
However, we do realize that a lot of people enjoy that linear time-attack style of play, so we wanted to make sure we made that possible within Frontiers, which is ultimately the Cyberspace levels you played. It’s that traditional linear format where people challenge themselves to run as fast as possible.
Giuseppe: I can imagine it must have been quite a challenge to do something so different from your studio’s previous games. What was the most challenging aspect of this process?
Takashi Iizuka: Yes, as you can see from playing the game, we made really big islands for this open-zone environment so you can run around it. We realized we needed all the very iconic fast action that Sonic does when he runs and jumps.
But if we just filled the island with quick things to do, the island is still very, very big and it won’t feel like there were enough things on the island. That’s what we had to challenge ourselves with from a design perspective: what else can we put on this island? What can Sonic do while in high-speed action? Then we thought about the puzzles on the islands, the enemies to battle and the collectibles on the islands.
We really wanted to make sure we populated the islands with enough stuff to get people curious about exploring, trying things out and enjoying running around.
Giuseppe: There’s one 3D Sonic that’s ever been really successful, and it’s the Sonic movies. Was there something that you learned or that you brought back from the movies, or that inspired you?
Takashi Iizuka: Game development for Sonic Frontiers actually started before the development of the movies, so we didn’t really put anything from the movies into the game, but one of the things we learned when movie one and movie two came out is that we audience is huge and we have people who are Sonic fans who have never played a Sonic game. Plus, we have really young kids who are now fans of Sonic the Hedgehog.
So we really want to make sure that we provide game content and fun things to do for this really broad audience, people who are not very familiar with games and who are not hardcore gamers and who are part of a younger audience.
That’s why we released Sonic Origins this year to ensure that people who have never played a Sonic game before get that original experience. On the other hand, we’ll be releasing Sonic Frontiers later this year for people who are more hardcore gamers. But we think about that really broad audience and provide content for that whole audience.
Giuseppe: Do you think there’s anything in the movies other than the size and reach of the fanbase that you can incorporate into future games or use as inspiration?
Takashi Iizuka: We’ll tell you the full story of what’s happening: the people who make the film really respect the games and make sure that the portrayal of Sonic and the things he does in the film are respectful of the property.
They also look at our games and come up with all the interesting Easter eggs and references from the games that they can pack in the movies to get the game fans excited.
So instead of the games being inspired by the movies, it’s the movies that really try to get the most out of the games.
Giuseppe: I have to say that if you included toothy Sonic in the games as an Easter egg, I mean the rejected version from the movies, that would probably work. He’s become something of a meme these days.
[At this point, both Iizuka-san and the translator laughed for a couple of minutes. It appears that this isn’t going to happen]
Giuseppe: Anything else you’d like to share about the game for fans of the franchise, and maybe even those people who’ve seen the movies but haven’t played a Sonic game yet?
Takashi Iizuka: We believe 2022 will be Sonic’s biggest year. We’ve done a lot of great things this year and a lot of great things for the future as well.
The success of movie two was really great and it really brought a lot of people to the audience. So we thank everyone for enjoying movie two.
Right after that we had the release of Sonic Origins. We have the release of Sonic Frontiers on November 8, and we also have the Netflix TV show Sonic Prime this winter.
So we have a huge range of content that we’re going to bring to people, and in the last 31 years there’s never been this much content coming out.
So if you’re new to the franchise and want to get a little wet at what a Sonic game is, we truly believe Sonic Origins will be that title for you. It is all of the original content. It’s what brought the hardcore fans into Sonic the Hedgehog.
And if you’re a hardcore gamer or someone who’s played a lot of Sonic games, we believe Sonic Frontiers is going to be a great game for that audience.
It’s the game format that we think people expect and want to play, giving you the freedom to go and do the things you want to do as Sonic the Hedgehog, so we’re really happy to have that content. We hope the fans can play, enjoy and watch everything we have in store this year.
Sonic Frontiers will be released this holiday season for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.
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