Sonic Frontiers - Teaser Trailer

[FloweringFox]

55 minutes ago, Scar said:

You're drawing way too many conclusions from a teaser that's not even made by Sonic Team.
And it seems like you have an issue with the art style more than the actual technology at play here. I'm sure they could make Sonic furry and spikey like in the film, but they probably don't like the way that looks. I wouldn't mind seeing a soft velvet-like texture for Sonic's fur (rather than the aggressive spines), but honestly in a teaser trailer where you can barely see his face and is less than 30 seconds long in total, they're not gonna bother with making new model with new textures. They'll just copy+paste the model they've been using for CG for years cause its easier.

In-game: sure they might use a spruced up model in cutscenes, but for most gameplay purposes they'll use a pared down LOD model with fewer polygons and flatter textures because it does literally nothing from a visuals point of view and only hurts performance. Unless they go for the movie-style super spikey look (which I personally do not care for) from how far away Sonic will typically be from the screen, in a high-speed game, you wouldn't even be able to see it.

More to the point - we haven't seen what the game actually looks like. Its a CGI trailer. Whilst I doubt Sonic Team will muster something as jaw-dropping as R&C on PS5 (Gods I wish they would), this teaser offers nothing for you to make such make such assertions.

 

It probably is boost again, because I doubt Sonic Team have the bollocks to create a brand new gameplay engine at this point. They're gonna milk the Generations Engine for all its worth. I just fucking hope they don't dumb it down to the extent they did for Forces.

Too early to comment based on a Teaser trailer. But you're not going to get a game with a mega budget any more. Unleashed took absolutely AGES to make because of how big it was, but if you play the day stages its ultimately very short (hence the need for Werehog). Even if they slow Sonic down compared to Unleashed or even generations - higher speed requires bigger levels. The game will be short regardless of what you do. So the best thing to do is to operate with a medium budget and make a cheap-ish game that is short. They don't have the brand cache to charge top dollar for stupid shit like Nintendo does.

I don't care about the length or scope or whatever else. I just want it to be a good game, both mechanically and in terms of game design. If its short. So be it. I would rather play the game wishing there were more, than having a really long, boring slog.

This is the unfortunate reality of Sonic Team. It has been for the better part of a decade. Leaning too heavily on past glories. The one time they tried something new (Lost World) it was not really well received. For good reason mind, it was a mediocre game. I hope they have something new in mind, but I'm not expecting much. As long as whatever it is they do is good, I'll be happy. 

---

As for the teaser itself - its a CGI Teaser. Can't infer anything from a CGI Teaser. Its not been true for Sonic games and it hasn't been true of literally every other video game ever made in the last 25 years. This was just a hype piece with a vague connection to the actual game.

Am I excited? Sort of? I miss the days where we would have intense debates over minutia - those were simpler times. Digital boost? Is it a boost or just an effect? Is Sonic in a digital world? Is it some new power up? Fuck it could just be 4K version of LASER Wisp. Want to see more. That symbol looks pretty cool. I always enjoyed it when Sonic games had some vaguely ancient/ruins type stuff (S3K, Adventure etc.) so I hope they lean on that. 

Also I sure am glad that they didn't deliver some insane hype trailer with a massive battle, teasing a war for the whole planet like they did with Forces. Cause lord only knows how that ended up. A simple teaser like this is so much better, because there's no expectation. There isn't enough for people to start headcanoning shit and ending up disappointed when reality misaligns with expectation. Here we have Sonic running in forest with digital effects around him, tracing a funky logo. 

Not unlike the Sonic Colours reveal with had nothing other than Sonic running along a forest from Planet Wisp. Simple and effective.

You're right. Honestly, I just built up my expectations way too much and expected the next Adventure, with a big game trailer showcasing something huge. All I hope is that it doesn't end up a mess. I'll need to do my research before I end up buying this one, though.

I wonder if after the whole thing with Boom, Sonic Team's been scared to do anything too ambitious since Boom had millions poured into it only to sell few copies. Or maybe they don't have the funds to build this stuff. Who knows? I have no idea how Sonic Team gets their funding, because it seems like SEGA's been doing well with games like Yakuza, while Sonic's gotten the short end of the stick. 

I'll be waiting until E3, where they'll hopefully show gameplay and share some content that will be in the game. If they barely show anything, it'll be cause for concern.

[Razule]

4 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

GAME IS CALLED SONIC RANGERS

https://www.akibagamers.it/27-05-2021/sonic-the-hedgehog-annunciato-un-nuovo-titolo-sviluppato-dal-team-sonic/

The Freedom Fighters are back! /j

[Rabbitearsblog]

The new game looks really interesting, even though I have no idea what kind of game this is going to be.  Let's hope it's good!

[Zoomzeta]

I'm getting tired of this. OK, seeing that we are all at a dead end in regards to what type of game we are getting exactly, I think we should shift the conversation into why this new game was announced the way it did. 

[NoKaine]

1 minute ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

Dragon Quest XII did that too. The main difference between Sonic and all those other games is just shaken trust. This trailer currently doesn't do anything to instill or remove trust in anything at least I feel.

We're just kind of back where we started. We know Sonic's getting a new game, and we essentially have that with video footage now. It doesn't really make people feel like it's gonna be better than Forces or anything.

Nothing in a trailer would make people feel it's better than Forces. The only way to confirm that is if the game came out. Reminder that people thought that Forces itself would be a return to form, and the teaser even had "from the team that made Colors and Generations."

Now that was arrogance, especially when it was objectively not true.

[FloweringFox]

4 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

GAME IS CALLED SONIC RANGERS

https://www.akibagamers.it/27-05-2021/sonic-the-hedgehog-annunciato-un-nuovo-titolo-sviluppato-dal-team-sonic/

Sonic Rangers... I can't stop imagining Sonic and friends dressed like forest rangers now.

[VO.SUPER]

Just now, Zoomzeta said:

I'm getting tired of this. OK, seeing that we are all at a dead end in regards to what type of game we are getting exactly, I think we should shift the conversation into why this new game was announced the way it did. 

We have so little to go off of regarding that,

"They want to tease us for more."

or

"Gameplay is looking so rough we can't show anything."

It could be any of those, which is the annoying bit. We won't know until we actually see more.

[Detective Kaito]

13 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

Ironically, all of the (top) tweets there talk about how hype it would've been to do that.

Also, as a tweet pointed out, Smash Ultimate did pretty much the same thing as this teaser did. All it showed was "Inklings are in it, also Link has his BOTW design." People thought for months that it was a port of the Wii U version.

ALSO, Breath of the Wild 2. Though in that case, people hate that literally nothing has been said of it since its teaser.

Smash Ultimate and BotW2 earned the cryptic trailers because their prequels were good games, we knew what to expect from them. All you need to say is that a new Smash/BotW game is coming and people will be excited as hell. They EARNED it because they're good franchises with consistently good games.

Sonic has not earned that, the last Sonic game was a disaster. Repeating the same mistake you made in 2016 by showing a CGI trailer that tells us almost nothing is doing nobody any favors. Reveal the game when you're ready to show gameplay. Simple as that.

[Shade Vortex]

I've learned my lesson by now. I refuse to have any interest in a game that doesn't show any -game- off. CGI only reveals should have been killed off a decade ago at this point. I know it's the norm for SEGA, but it seemed for a moment that maybe SEGA would do things differently because of how things have been going. This is not a good indication of anything for me. Pretty much nothing announced in the Stream excited me, if anything it did the opposite.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

I should say, I don't need to actually see gameplay until they feel ready to show something off. With Forces, I attended SXSW and the gameplay reveal showed me that they were not close to done and really didn't do much to alter my expectations from the non-gameplay 2016 trailer.

If the gameplay isn't fundamentally different this time, I would rather them just give us a synopsis of the stylistic changes, or the plot, or some overarching narrative and what Sonic is up to this time and why we should care. If the changes are subtle, maybe show a few quick power ups.

 

If the gameplay is fundamentally different, give us a lot more info when you do the full reveal, not just a trailer with a short clip.

[NoKaine]

6 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

Smash Ultimate and BotW2 earned the cryptic trailers because their prequels were good games

No game "earns" a certain type of teaser trailer. Every form of trailer is marketing for a game, and each and every one of their purpose is to make people think about the game, whether it's cryptic or reveals everything. There is no "trailer prestige." 

For that matter, this is what they have been doing with Team Sonic Racing, Forces, and Generations. It seems this is how SEGA likes to market (modern) Sonic games.

6 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

we knew what to expect from them.

We explicitly did not know what to expect from Ultimate. That is what I'm talking about. People thought it was literally the previous game in the series. There was nothing in that teaser that told you "EVERYONE IS HERE!", which is the game's actual marketing ploy. 

6 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

Repeating the same mistake you made in 2016 by showing a CGI trailer that tells us almost nothing is doing nobody any favors.

I thought Forces' mistake was that it wasn't a good game, but I guess now if this trailer

came out first, it would've been good...? Nothing in that trailer changed the actual game. Nothing about the first teaser changed the reception to this trailer.

This teaser fuels speculation like every other game. For example, we know literally nothing about the game, and you already presume it's bad specifically because you don't know much about the game.

[McGroose]

Because Zippo's leaks (and other leaks) have basically all been confirmed to be BS at this point, we're back at square one as to what this game could be like.

I think it was @DiogenesWho noticed this years ago with the Forces teaser trailer, but the way Sonic moved seemed like a noticeable reference to boost style gameplay; super fast movement in a straight forward line was quickly ducking or jumping over obstacles and little variation. Maybe that's looking too deep into it, but hey, turned out to be accurate. Based on that, I'm gonna assume that this is a boost game again. I'm aware of how irrational it might sound to use a teaser trailer of Sonic running forward to determine what gameplay style the game will use, but screw it we've got nothing and I'll conclude it's boost until I see otherwise. It'll probably utilize the boost formula in ways not yet seen before, but it's a boost game at it's core regardless.

And with previous leakers basically all saying the game is entirely 3D now possibly wrong, I'm gonna assume the game is only going to be half 3D at best as well. Gotta keep your expectations low

Finally, no 2D Modern game. Maybe, just maybe we'll get another main game, but I'm doubtful, I was already skeptical when I heard we were getting a big 2D and 3D game at the same time. The assumption was that the new 2D game would release this year and the big 3D one next year or late this year. Since this is all we got today, I'm guessing that this is all we'll get period.

I'm really hoping we get more at E3 or June 23rd but I'm doubtful. I hated how Forces was handled, from reveal to launch, and it looks like we're getting a repeat of that. What's another year ontop of the previous 3-4 we've been waiting already though, right?

[Natie]

Litterally the only thing that caught my interest was Sonic's shoes being pointier so that's pretty hillarious

[VO.SUPER]

*Sigh* If I could scrutinize and read the tea leaves here. I guess them revealing a CGI trailer is more telling about the state of the game than just saying it exists and saying there's more to come.

The event feels like it was primarily made for Sonic Colours Ultimate, which has the MOST complete looking trailer and features of the 3 reveals we saw. SEGA could have just dropped that reveal in any other game event but maybe they felt they needed a whole event for that and more, so they put this whole thing together primarily for the game releasing soonest. However, they had just enough of the other two to show off footage and a proper CGI reveal teasing some gameplay concept in visual form.

That's my most generous theory on why they decided to reveal this game. They  felt they needed to give something ahead of time for the 2022 release.

[NoKaine]

I doubt the teaser is out of any development issues , but I wholly agree that Colors Ultimate is definitely what SEGA wants everyone to think about, especially since that's the one that comes out this year.

[KHCast]

Yeah gonna be honest, don’t get the excitement or hype over this. It’s a 15 second cgi trailer with little to go off of. Especially when this is coming from Sega, who’s inconsistent as fuck with this franchises quality, I don’t know how I’m already seeing people in the “shut up and take my money hyyyypeee” mentality. It’s not like Zelda or Smash, where the quality is consistent enough to at least have a bit of trust in the developers that what they’re showing off will probably be great and worth the excitement. Here it’s just...”well, I hope it’s at least decent. Then maybe I’ll check it out at some point if it’s not too expensive”

[Stasis]

So, how do we now get Rangers from that logo/symbol?

[NoKaine]

Just now, Stasis said:

So, how do we now get Rangers from that logo/symbol?

Not the logo, but the metadata from the trailer.

[Diogenes]

3 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

We explicitly did not know what to expect from Ultimate. That is what I'm talking about. People thought it was literally the previous game in the series. There was nothing in that teaser that told you "EVERYONE IS HERE!", which is the game's actual marketing ploy. 

We knew it would be Smash, though. They could afford to be "mysterious" when they had already firmly established what a Smash Bros was like. Sonic doesn't have anywhere near that degree of consistency.

[Zoomzeta]

6 minutes ago, McGroose said:

Because Zippo's leaks (and other leaks) have basically all been confirmed to be BS at this point, we're back at square one as to what this game could be like.

I think it was @DiogenesWho noticed this years ago with the Forces teaser trailer, but the way Sonic moved seemed like a noticeable reference to boost style gameplay; super fast movement in a straight forward line was quickly ducking or jumping over obstacles and little variation. Maybe that's looking too deep into it, but hey, turned out to be accurate. Based on that, I'm gonna assume that this is a boost game again. I'm aware of how irrational it might sound to use a teaser trailer of Sonic running forward to determine what gameplay style the game will use, but screw it we've got nothing and I'll conclude it's boost until I see otherwise. It'll probably utilize the boost formula in ways not yet seen before, but it's a boost game at it's core regardless.

And with previous leakers basically all saying the game is entirely 3D now possibly wrong, I'm gonna assume the game is only going to be half 3D at best as well. Gotta keep your expectations low

Finally, no 2D Modern game. Maybe, just maybe we'll get another main game, but I'm doubtful, I was already skeptical when I heard we were getting a big 2D and 3D game at the same time. The assumption was that the new 2D game would release this year and the big 3D one next year or late this year. Since this is all we got today, I'm guessing that this is all we'll get period.

I'm really hoping we get more at E3 or June 23rd but I'm doubtful. I hated how Forces was handled, from reveal to launch, and it looks like we're getting a repeat of that. What's another year ontop of the previous 3-4 we've been waiting already though, right?

I...still don't really know what to expect from this game. I'm literally at the same position I was before the teaser, indifferent 

[NoKaine]

4 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

We knew it would be Smash, though. They could afford to be "mysterious" when they had already firmly established what a Smash Bros was like. Sonic doesn't have anywhere near that degree of consistency.

Fair enough.

EDIT: Though still, making it so unclear as to if your new game is new is not spectacular marketing. No one will think this game is a port of Forces, at least.

Edited May 27, 2021 by NoKaine

[Gotta Go Rational]

This website seems to be straight up calling the game Sonic Rangers. Are they quoting or showing a SEGA press release that's, intentionally or not, revealed the title?

https://k54bgtic65b4tzyauoc5wmk4f4-adv7ofecxzh2qqi-www-akibagamers-it.translate.goog/27-05-2021/sonic-the-hedgehog-annunciato-un-nuovo-titolo-sviluppato-dal-team-sonic/

[Stasis]

1 minute ago, NoKaine said:

Not the logo, but the metadata from the trailer.

Oh yes, I understand the name is from the metadata and was mentioned in an article. I'm just wondering how going off what they have shown us would we have figured out it could possibly be called Sonic Rangers? 

[NoKaine]

They just call it "New (Sonic Team) Game" elsewhere.

[Razule]

6 minutes ago, Stasis said:

So, how do we now get Rangers from that logo/symbol?

It's the symbol of whoever the rangers are.