Sonic Frontiers - Teaser Trailer

[CertifiedNobody]

6 hours ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

I think a big part of giving us a sense of adventure would be explaining where this new location is relative to Sonic’s usual stomping grounds. I mean what makes Sonic Adventure feel adventurous is that you start out somewhere that Sonic seems to be pretty familiar with, and then you start finding things in the Mystic Ruins that none of the characters have ever seen. 
 

I have to wonder, how the hell will they even pull off this open world? Even if Sonic doesn’t have boost outside of cyberspace (wtf, cyberspace?), he’s still at least as fast as a car. 
 

And what relevance does the digital world have to these natural landscapes and ancient ruins? How do the two even remotely line up? 

Juxtaposing the natural landscape and ruins with advanced tech isn't something new to Sonic.

[Jango]

Here's the blue print:

I think that little hub is brilliant. Little small areas themed around classic Sonic locations with dynamic music and missions to do. Hell, you can even ride the Tornado and reach the fucking Death Egg. Imagine this, but bigger and better. I'll be so down.

[azoo]

Something like that in size but just for one zone, and then having multiple of those in a game would be dope.

[Enesephus]

That wasn't half bad. For a full Sonic game I'd make some adjustments, namely giving Sonic more to interact with in terms of traversal and changing it from a collect-a-thon to something more mission-based, but if there were several zones of about that scale like azoo said then yeah, we could be in for a real treat.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I'd just like to say I kind of dig the writing in that from what I watched. It's very silly and fanservice-y, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't put a smile on my face. It also makes me really miss Travis Willingham as Knuckles, he's just so likeable.

[herbhen]

Assuming the leaks are indeed true. I think it sounds exceptionally interesting. I suppose it essentially means the Adventure fields are returning, I'll be entirely honest, I'm not one of these people that necessarily misses the open hubs of some of the past games, but after Sonic forces, which frankly only loosly connected its world together in what felt like an exceptionally uncompelling way, the more linear approach to progression, didn't lend itself to that title at all.

Considering Breath of the Wilds success I can totally see why they would try and take an approach like this. I personally really like the idea of an open world populated with Sonic platforming challenges etc, I think Breath of the Wild (whilst an utterly fantastic game) it was very slow of the ground for me with some of its traversal in the start game being relatively slow. I guess Sonics speed would help with getting across an open world far quicker, I just hope the worlds are populated enough, (flash backs to Sonic 06's forest). I hope there will also be a lot of visual variety too, I'm only speculating based on what we know (which is little at this point) but if the forest would hypothetically be the only hub area, I sincerly hope the cyberspace levels teleport you to vastly different areas. A hub world more akin to the likes of the Lego dimensions area posted earlier in my honest opinion would be far more favourable. 

With the leaked title seemingly confirming the game being called 'Sonic Rangers' I'm wondering if they will return to Sonic Forces avatar's. I know that the rumours seem to point at Sonics abilitys being tied to a skill tree but I thought as a potential other option especially considering the open world nature of the game, expansion of the Avatar mechanics from Forces, would lend itself quite well to this. 

[Red Hot Jack]

After what we saw in TSR customization and even Colors Ultimate, the way they do it now it seems they ditched your own avatar for customizable Sonic and canon characters, which is basically the most ideal option. I don't know if this feature is in the game but it would absolutely fit with the idea of open world and freedom. Also yes, as we said the open world would be like a giant adventure field with zones in it, another perfect idea. Another cool thing that needs to appear is obviously day/night changes and weather changes otherwise what kind of open world is it?

It just sounds too good to be true.

[herbhen]

1 hour ago, Jack-al said:

After what we saw in TSR customization and even Colors Ultimate, the way they do it now it seems they ditched your own avatar for customizable Sonic and canon characters, which is basically the most ideal option. I don't know if this feature is in the game but it would absolutely fit with the idea of open world and freedom. Also yes, as we said the open world would be like a giant adventure field with zones in it, another perfect idea. Another cool thing that needs to appear is obviously day/night changes and weather changes otherwise what kind of open world is it?

It just sounds too good to be true.

Didn't even think about Weather and Day/night cycles. Weather could be interesting if it changes traversal in the game (i.e rain means sonic has less traction on the groung etc) Could be interesting if certain challenges are even changed by weather, or the world has a rotation of seasons. Again as you say wishful thinking for even the implementation of these features without the effects on gameplay. Still at least with a day/night cycle they could finally make that Werehog teaser from the live stream seem worthwile instead of just a cameo in Forces mobile (I joke of course, but that tease really was bad show). 

[Jango]

I wonder if the idea of making an open world Sonic game came to ST after the attention Project Hero was getting:

 

[azoo]

Probably more so from Utopia than anything else outside of BOTW.

[VO.SUPER]

Id like to imagine they were inspired by the 2016 fangames that pushed open world like Utopia, Project Hero. 

They saw it was in demand with the fans and then BoTW came out, affirming to them that its a good idea. 

But, I dont think Sega would admit that. So we can only speculate on that point. 

[Soniman]

They at least have to know the idea of an open world Sonic has been a desire for a LOT of Sonic fans as the next step so it wouldn't surprise me if Sega was keeping their ear to the ground considering they base a lot of their games on chasing public opinion and gaming trends.

 

[Wraith]

Legally I'm not sure if they can admit something like that, but yeah that's definitely where the idea came from. 

Now I'm wondering if they actually stuck with it or if it ended up folding back into a more traditional boost game like Forces. 

[VO.SUPER]

35 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Legally I'm not sure if they can admit something like that, but yeah that's definitely where the idea came from. 

Now I'm wondering if they actually stuck with it or if it ended up folding back into a more traditional boost game like Forces. 

I'd like to believe development didn't go so bad that they'd restart things in 2020. Assuming the game started development in late 2017, that'd be a lot of game lost. And I'm sure Sonic Team knows they can't just fall back on the boost like Forces.

The biggest thing is if the team is focused enough on the idea. The last thing this project needs is infighting and too many cooks. Hopefully the mess that was Forces has been just the kick in the teeth to keep them focused on a solid base.

[PickleBrows]

The Avatar idea came about after all the fan work they've been shown over the years of fan characters. SEGA & sonic Team might be prone to over-correcting and learning the wrong lessons but they do know how to spot trends. I'd be very surprised if they weren't at least aware of the common threads in recent 3D fan games. Wouldn't shock me if certain invididuals have even played them in their spare time.

Given what the likes of Mario and Zelda were doing in the same year Forces released, I think they will have deemed a shake-up necessary.

[azoo]

Honestly everything about Rangers sounds like a promising shakeup, but I really hope the combat isn’t as prevalent as they said by the time we see it. 

Sonic and combat has a track record of being part of the worst games in this series, and the only one who didn’t do it straight terribly (Unleashed) was both ill-fitting and still not anything great.

[PC the Hedgehog]

If they do an open world, I hope it's more than huge expanses of nothing like 95% of the open world fangames.

[The Famous Sonic]

21 minutes ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

I'd like to believe development didn't go so bad that they'd restart things in 2020. Assuming the game started development in late 2017, that'd be a lot of game lost. And I'm sure Sonic Team knows they can't just fall back on the boost like Forces.

The biggest thing is if the team is focused enough on the idea. The last thing this project needs is infighting and too many cooks. Hopefully the mess that was Forces has been just the kick in the teeth to keep them focused on a solid base.

I think development has been affected because of the pandemic so that's why they didn't show any gameplay. 

[VO.SUPER]

SEGA is pretty lucky for fan games. They essentially get free product pitches not made on company time that can experiment wildly with the formula in ways they may not have time for. While the attitudes behind some games can get a bit unprofessional and arrogant, their uses as reference is probably invaluable.

Were it not for the legal grey of this situation, I'm sure we'd get more open communication on this matter.

The biggest thing I think they would take from Utopia was just the variety of movement options. They just need to figure out how to make it not so aimless, which is probably the hurdle of every open world project.

[NoKaine]

Taking ideas from fan games is actually a really bad idea for a company and the majority of companies avoid doing that.

And when SEGA takes inspiration from fan games, they typically just hire the fans anyway.

Besides, I don't think they need a fan game to make an open-world game. Utopia didn't invent the idea, after all.

[Jango]

Yeah, IIRC, fan games like this:

 

Were also getting A LOT of attention one year or so before Classic Sonic in Generations. So yeah. SEGA is always looking at what the fans are doing.

[VO.SUPER]

10 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

Taking ideas from fan games is actually a really bad idea for a company and the majority of companies avoid doing that.

And when SEGA takes inspiration from fan games, they typically just hire the fans anyway.

Besides, I don't think they need a fan game to make an open-world game. Utopia didn't invent the idea, after all.

Ideas as in mechanics fleshed out. We're not talking about visual motifs or pure ideas. At the end of the day there's only so much you can do before ideas start clumping on each other. It'd be one thing if it was just plunking down the Utopia map onto a Sonic game, but just iterating on ideas isn't something a court will side with you on.

I'd like to believe that some fans have the logic to not try and challenge something they know they can't win and would only damage our relationship with SEGA.

And when I reference Utopia, I'm referring to the idea of a Sonic driven by momentum in a large area. And even then, it's the idea of translating Sonic into a large expanse where freedom is encouraged.

[NoKaine]

3 minutes ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

Ideas as in mechanics fleshed out. We're not talking about visual motifs or pure ideas. At the end of the day there's only so much you can do before ideas start clumping on each other. It'd be one thing if it was just plunking down the Utopia map onto a Sonic game, but just iterating on ideas isn't something a court will side with you on.

And when I reference Utopia, I'm referring to the idea of a Sonic driven by momentum in a large area. And even then, it's the idea of translating Sonic into a large expanse where freedom is encouraged.

What I mean is that they are not going to look in-depth into fan games, intentionally or not, to avoid that problem in the first place. Actually, considering SEGA's lax attitude towards fan games, I would believe they just don't look at them.

They are definitely listening to fans' desires but I highly doubt they crib ideas from fan games specifically. Their old rival has been going on an open-world spree for a while now.

"Open-world Sonic" is not a unique fan idea, and really fans are still very cautious on the idea on principle (and I still am, to be honest).

[VO.SUPER]

Just now, NoKaine said:

What I mean is that they are not going to look in-depth into fan games, intentionally or not, to avoid that problem in the first place. Actually, considering SEGA's lax attitude towards fan games, I would believe they just don't look at them.

"Open-world Sonic" is not a unique fan idea, and really fans are still very cautious on the idea on principle (and I still am, to be honest).

We know that SEGA has seen them. They just usually tell their lawyers to back off unless things get out of hand. This has been mentioned in the past at plenty of points. But you know, there's no public admittance of this from any of the active SEGA employees of course. This is stuff we usually hear from former staffers and such. It just falls short of stuff like the Skullgirls fan controversy when characters were referenced.

It's not a unique fan idea, but it's an idea that has been toyed with fans in ways to make it more viable with the character of Sonic. They aren't just plonking him down on a gigantic empty field like this shot:

Spoiler

The games we know like Utopia and Hero try to actually go for the geometry we expect in Sonic, translating them into a 3D playground that emphasizes what a lot of the classics did. The biggest thing they lack is purpose, because they are essentially tech demos for mechanics and such, not fully fleshed out games.

[Blue Blood]

Just gonna barge in here with my one little observation that I bet a ton of you have already made for yourselves...

Sonic doesn't seem to boost in the trailer. When he creates that digital blue effect, the "spin cycle" if the leak is to be believed, he actually seems to warp away ala time travelling in CD. And that's what the leak suggests; Sonic gets this digital effect and warps to cyberspace.

Just thought it was cool. I assume most other people have noticed this already and screenshots have probably been posted a dozen times too. He's still completely gone in the second part of the trailer where the spin cycle trail draws part of the "zap" logo:

That's all. Leak still seems totally legit to me. And this game has definitely caught my attention. It all sounds so exciting on paper and I trust SEGA and Sonic Team to fuck it up 110%. 

[Soniman]

I never thought it was the boost it always looked like an entirely new gimmick to me which is what I figured they were showing off because...well that's what you wanna show off for any teaser end not just have Sonic do the standard boost and that's it. Definitely got a electronic/digital vibe from it myself.