SEGA not surprised by public reaction to Sonic Frontiers announcement

This month some gameplay for the open-world Sonic game was revealed, which didn’t go over well given the strong fan reaction.

Fans of the blue hedgehog wishing only the good of this franchise reacted strongly to the images, declaring the game “empty” or even “soulless”, that it looks like a “fangame or a tech demo”. A movement was quickly created by raising the hashtag #DelaySonicFrontiers on social networks in order to make their voices heard with SEGA to tell them to work better on the game, even if it means delaying its release.

During an interview with our colleagues from VGCSonic Team leader Takashi Izuka said he was “little surprised” because the open areas are new to the series and that he says “players will become more aware of them by playing them”.

Here is a transcript of what was said:

It’s not that surprising, we know that everyone only reacts to videos and this by not understanding the new gameplay, they compare it to other games they know. So we see a lot of people saying “oh it’s like this or that but it’s different from this…”. The team is working hard to create a new game format for Sonic that we call “open area”. This new game system is a format that doesn’t exist in other comparable titles, so hopefully by launch we can truly explain what we mean by ‘open area gameplay’.

If the public shows up at Gamescom or the Tokyo Game Show, they can get their hands on the game and understand it. Because now it’s just reactions to videos and the public reacts to what they believe the game will be.

Following this he would also have reacted to the hashtags #DelaySonicFrontiers:

Frontiers is currently in development, we have done a lot of playtesting with a target audience that is in the Sonic fan demographic. Based on our test results we listened to feedback and also received great feedback from testers saying they “had a lot of fun with the game, they would rate it 80 or 90 out of 100”. So we believe the game is nearing completion and the audience will enjoy it, we really want to release the game for our fans as soon as possible.

We’re really confident with the internal test feedback, many said they’re having fun and enjoying the game, so we realize a lot of fans are reacting to the posted videos and making up their minds. So unless our team catches the coronavirus or is hospitalized or something prevents us from continuing to work normally, the team is working hard to ensure that this winter vacation the game is available.

In any case, a lot of feedback from the media who have been able to get their hands on the game during the Summer Game Fest seems rather positive about the experience. For the general public, we will have to wait for new gameplay videos, hoping that they will be more convincing.