Sonic Frontiers will bring Sonic “to the next level” with “new combat styles,” says Takashi Iizuka

Sonic Team paying extremely close attention to getting all the little Sonic details right.

Image via Sega

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Information about Sonic Frontiers has been a little scarce since the game’s trailer dropped at The Game Awards back in December. Now Sonic Team’s creative officer Takashi Iizuka has come out with more information about the next highly-anticipated Sonic title.

In an interview with GamesRadar, Iizuka said that the critical failure of Sonic Forces forced the developers at Sonic Team to reconsider everything they’ve done, writing a plot in which Dr. Eggman finally took over the world, rehashing Classic Sonic, and restricting Sonic’s movements and expressions. Now with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on the market, they’re working on Sonic Frontiers from the ground up, reworking Sonic’s core movements and giving him new combat styles to suit the new open-world environment he’ll be running around in while making sure he’s better represented as the speedy blue hedgehog fans have known and loved for over 30 years.

“We focused on bringing Sonic to the next level and ensuring that he is fully represented as the character that fans know and love while making this new form exciting,” Iizuka said. “We pay extremely close attention to getting all the little Sonic details right to make sure that Sonic’s signature speed and characteristics remain consistent across every gaming iteration. With Sonic Frontiers, we’ll introduce new combat styles to bring Sonic’s signature dexterity onto the battlefield, and the new exploration options obviously play into his iconic speedy nature.”

Sonic Team has a history of experimenting with different gameplay styles for every Sonic game, and each style they try is either a hit or a miss. Based on Iizuka’s testimony on how the Sonic Frontiers’ development is going, they seem to be bringing their A-game.

Sonic Frontiers is set to release Holiday 2022 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.