Sonic Frontiers - Content Roadmap, new playable characters and new story content confirmed!

[Red Hot Jack]

Gonna propose the cynical theory the friends are playable in all-new stages rather than in existing stuff from the base game, cyberspace stages are designed for boost styled speedrunning, while the open zone is designed with Sonic's skilltree in mind. We are getting their own stuff in mini doses, I think it will be like the Sonic '06 amigo DLC. 

It would be easy to say they will be playable in cyberspace stages but I doubt it, it's gonna be a follow up story on Sage and the friends are (spoiler alert) free from cyberspace.

[Blue Blood]

Cynical as I might be about his the playable characters will pan out in this free update, it's still something. Something more than we've had since 2006. Maybe the next game might actually have more than just Sonic playable. 

[KHCast]

40 minutes ago, Ming Ming Hatsune said:

But...

Anthem = Crap and forgettable. User base dropped massively. Also a GaaS. So you can’t compare this.

Avengers = Average at best (and they did some parts of the roadmap). User base also dropped massively. 

And games like Cyberpunk, while started in a broken mess fixed the problems and still followed through with the roadmap.

I love how I never once said Frontiers wouldn’t follow through on its promises, and simply that I’m being cautious in my optimism, and that’s somehow offending people? I’m still interested in seeing where it goes, and hope we get everything stated. 

[DaBigJ]

Worst thing about the playables is that we probably won't find out what it truly means until late 2023 unless SEGA makes a trailer or post detailing the whole roadmap

[azoo]

Don't really want other playable characters in a game that's mostly just gonna be combat, but I guess that's exactly why some want this, so have fun folks.

Glad to hear they're giving this game features it deserved (and maybe should've had from the get-go).. though I could've used a fourth map. Oh well. Photo mode and jukebox are definitely good calls.

Silver lining for me: I wonder if giving Frontiers all of this means the next game planned will be more different in execution. I don't really suspect the next Sonic will be a sequel anymore. 

[DaBigJ]

1 minute ago, azoo said:

Silver lining for me: I wonder if giving Frontiers all of this means the next game planned will be more different in execution.

Possibly. I'm sure they're taking the feedback well enough to refine stuff at the very least. The fact that they're even willing to add this much post-launch content is no doubt a good sign....

So playable Classic Sonic when?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

3 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

So playable Classic Sonic when?

Only after playable Sticks and playable SQUID.

[MGA_Gamer]

OMG! They teased Tails combat at the end of a TailsTube Episode!

Spoiler

 

 

[The Deleter]

On the one hand: if the multiple playable characters are "just" cyberspace compatible, aka lacking a skill tree completely, that wouldn't mean they're incompatible with the open zones outright, since islands like Rhea get along without combat just fine. Plop them into a similarly sparse-but-platforming-populated island, (if not Rhea outright to pick up from where "corrupted Sonic" left off) and it might outright be preferable if it focuses on their platforming abilities.

But on the other hand... They've got an entire year to develop them, so... they might actually be getting Virgil DLC treatment lol

13 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

I can't really help but feel both excited and cynical (no it's not because i was wrong). Considering how janky Frontiers seems to be as is, I can only pray that they're also going to fix that while adding this content, because otherwise.

You might be interested in this:

 

[Kuzu]

The biggest Monkey's Paw scenario is that its actually just Sage that's playable.

[DaBigJ]

That's not what I meant

I don't care about pop-in, I just want better physics

[ZinogreVolt]

I don't really expect physics to be improved until the next game, if even that. I do want them to fix some collision issues, though.

[Drisaac]

6 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

The biggest Monkey's Paw scenario is that its actually just Sage that's playable.

I know you said this as a joke but since they said playable characters with plural I don't think that's gonna be case.

[ZinogreVolt]

1 minute ago, Drisaac said:

I know you said this as a joke but since they said playable characters with plural I don't think that's gonna be case.

They also said "five massive islands" 

[The Deleter]

Alright I know I just said that combat might be available to them due to the year long wait... but at the same time, the "Sonic's so cool" exclusive power of this game appears to be the cyber powers he keeps absorbing, which leads the the cyloop, half the skill tree, etc. Will they actually break that "marketable male hedgehogs can only use the chaos emeralds" rule and give the friends the connective tissue as well, or is it more odds stacked against them having full-on implementation into the game?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

• Imagine if this is finally the game that debuts an official Super Amy.

[KHCast]

I’m honestly wondering that far out, how much life the extra characters will pump back into Frontiers. I feel like most at that point I’m assuming will have moved on. Seems like a big gamble, but I certainly hope it re-energizes the game enough for them to incorporate more characters in a future game. 

[Zoomzeta]

2 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I’m honestly wondering that far out, how much life the extra characters will pump back into Frontiers. I feel like most at that point I’m assuming will have moved on. Seems like a big gamble, but I certainly hope it re-energizes the game enough for them to incorporate more characters in a future game. 

Ok, this is a single player game and this is all free. The day the game dies and lives is when you stop playing and you pick it up again. 

[TheOcelot]

I'm glad more content is on the way as I quite like Frontiers. However, the fact that the dlc is free leads me to believe the new content will be bare-bones. Nothing to get excited over.

I'd much prefer it if SEGA focused on turning Rhea into a complete island with missions, cyberspace stages and change the aesthetic so that it's not blatantly obvious that it was originally part of Kronos Island. Also add a much better final-boss fight.

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

Gonna make the cynical prediction that the other characters will only be playable in cyberspace. Unless the new content is set postgame or they rework the story around the end of Rhea (not likely), that's where they're stuck, and they can't really interact with the real world. They could make open areas set in cyberspace, but by limiting them to levels they wouldn't have to worry about combat or how their abilities could break open-world challenges; they could get away with just reskinning Sonic and maybe giving them a different move or two. And filling in the details of what they went through while they were trapped would be a sensible way of expanding the story, though what little we heard about it doesn't sound much like what Sonic's experiences.

Inb4 Amy, Knuckles & Tails will only be playable to go fishing with Big..... Or just in the mini-games where you avoid the bombs and round-up the Koco

[Nuggets]

9 minutes ago, azoo said:

Silver lining for me: I wonder if giving Frontiers all of this means the next game planned will be more different in execution. I don't really suspect the next Sonic will be a sequel anymore. 

Considering the game’s massive success (for this series’ standards as of late, at least) and Iizuka’s comment about wanting this style to last for 10 years, this DLC reads more to me like inching into waters like playable characters in a small way before they implement them in full in a more robust sequel as opposed to offloading extra content before turning to something else. 

Sega is the king of decisions that don’t make any sense (chiefly Lost World) but conventional wisdom points toward this being the template going forward. 

[KHCast]

6 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

Ok, this is a single player game and this is all free. The day the game dies and lives is when you stop playing and you pick it up again. 

Companies still pay attention to player engagement even in single player games. It’s data that can be relevant to their future decisions, regardless of if the game is “dead” or not 

[MGA_Gamer]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

Companies still pay attention to player engagement even in single player games. It’s data that can be relevant to their future decisions, regardless of if the game is “dead” or not 

One thing to keep in mind is that it took Nintendo FIVE YEARS to give Mario Kart 8 the "Booster Course Pass" DLC!

[azoo]

3 minutes ago, Nuggets said:

Considering the game’s massive success (for this series’ standards as of late, at least) and Iizuka’s comment about wanting this style to last for 10 years, this DLC reads more to me like inching into waters like playable characters in a small way before they implement them in full in a more robust sequel as opposed to offloading extra content before turning to something else. 

Sega is the king of decisions that don’t make any sense (chiefly Lost World) but conventional wisdom points toward this being the template going forward. 

Oh I expect the "open zone" to stay. I just have the feeling it won't come back the same way Frontiers did it, nor with the same tone, ideas, etc.

Or maybe I'm just trying to be hopeful. Idk.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 minutes ago, TheOcelot said:

I'm glad more content is on the way as I quite like Frontiers. However, the fact that the dlc is free leads me to believe the new content will be bare-bones. Nothing to get excited over.

Not necessarily. Whilst a lot of the examples is live service games, even as far back as Overwatch 1, there's been games getting fully fledged, unique new playable characters for free long after their initial release windows.

Again, if it was just as simple as some barebones reskin job, there's very little reason why this would take a full year of development to get it out. Again, we had a example of that with Episode Shadow, and that was such a quick job that they had it ready to go for launch.

[KHCast]

13 minutes ago, TheOcelot said:

I'm glad more content is on the way as I quite like Frontiers. However, the fact that the dlc is free leads me to believe the new content will be bare-bones. Nothing to get excited over.

I’m pretty cautiously optimistic about this all myself, but free doesn’t exactly guarantee bare bones, and charged doesn’t guarantee content worth the asking price. KH3 Re:Mind for ex came out a year later and charged 30 bucks, and the 4 extra playable characters there were a joke, as they were only playable in a few boss battles and that was it. Granted, there was extra story content (most of it a massive retread of the end game) and secret super bosses, but most people didn’t get through the super bosses, and so that left the sorta new story content and a pretty bare bones scene creator mode. For 30 bucks. 
 

ironically on the flip side, the arguably better deal for a lot of people was the free update which came with new keyblades and abilities for Sora, critical mode, EZ/Pro codes, and some general tweaks to the gameplay