Sonic Frontiers

Sonic Frontiers is a 2022 platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega. As Sonic, the player explores the Starfall Islands to collect the Chaos Emeralds, after Sonic and his friends are separated when falling through a wormhole. Frontiers integrates traditional Sonic the Hedgehog elements—such as platforming, rings, and grind rails—into the series’ first open world. While exploring the open world, players can complete challenges, fight robotic enemies, and access “Cyber Space” levels inspired by previous Sonic games.

Following the release of Sonic Forces (2017), Sonic Team began exploring approaches for its next game. Takashi Iizuka, head of Sonic Team, wanted Frontiers to be a model for future titles, as Sonic Adventure had done in 1998. Sonic Team settled on an open-ended design and focused on adapting Sonic’s abilities to an open world. Frontiers was announced in December 2021. Doctor Eggman travels to the abandoned Starfall Islands to steal the technological secrets created by the Ancients, creatures that later evolved into to the Chao species. When he uploads his artificial intelligence unit, Sage, into a portal, several robotic defense units are summoned.

Detecting a threat signature, Sage ceases hijacking the portal and initiates a protection protocol, dragging Eggman into an artificial dimension called Cyber Space. Sonic, Tails and Amy investigate activity that has drawn the Chaos Emeralds to the islands, but their plane is sucked into a wormhole to Cyber Space. Sonic escapes to the islands in the real world, where a disembodied voice tasks him with finding the emeralds and destroying the island’s robotic Titans to remove the boundary between the real and digital worlds. Believing this will save his friends – including Knuckles, who was transported there while exploring the ruins above Angel Island.

Sonic releases their digital forms from cages created by Sage, who works to free Eggman from Cyber Space; destroying the cages causes Sonic’s body to become increasingly corrupted. Sage cautions Sonic to leave, influencing the islands’ mechanical guardians and Titans to attack him, but grows to sympathize with him while observing his interactions with his friends. Meanwhile, she and Eggman form a mutual familial bond. Sonic Frontiers is a 3D platformer and action-adventure game. As Sonic, the player explores the Starfall Islands (which consist of various biomes, including flowery fields, forests, ancient ruins, and deserts) to collect the Chaos Emeralds and investigate the islands’ relationship to them.

Sonic retains his abilities from previous Sonic the Hedgehog games: he runs at high speeds, collects rings, grinds on rails, and homes in on enemies to attack. The player can double jump, sidestep, drop dash, and boost if Sonic has enough energy. New abilities include combat attacks, running alongside walls, and using the Cyloop to create a circle of light around objects and interact with them. The Cyloop can perform different tasks by drawing certain shapes — for example, drawing an infinity symbol or a number 8 will allow Sonic to boost indefinitely for a short time. Sonic also gains the ability to temporarily boost indefinitely upon collecting the maximum number of rings. 

The player can customize the controls and adjust the game’s difficulty along with Sonic’s speed, turning, acceleration, and sensitivity, among other things. As they progress, they can also upgrade Sonic’s speed, attack, defense, ring capacity, and boost gauge. The Starfall Islands act as the series’s first open world, which writers compared to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The world retains traditional Sonic elements, such as springs, boost pads, and grind rails. The player explores the islands as they solve puzzles, such as orienting statues and speedrunning, to reveal parts of the map and obtain items. One of Sonic’s objectives is to rescue three of his friends – Miles “Tails” Prower, Amy Rose, and Knuckles the Echidna – who are trapped in Cyber Space.

Tails and Amy initially accompany Sonic in his investigation, while Knuckles was transported there earlier from the ruins above Angel Island. This is accomplished by obtaining various collectibles found in the open world. Collectibles include Kocos, which upgrade Sonic’s speed and ring capacity; New Kocos, which are larger and upgrade Sonic’s boost gauge; Red Seeds of Power and Blue Seeds of Defense, which upgrade Sonic’s attack strength and damage reduction, respectively; Sound Memories, which allow new songs to be added to the Jukebox; and Memory Tokens, which are used to trigger cutscenes and conversations with Sonic’s friends when they receive them.

These either progress the story’s plot (occasionally via minigames) or expand their relationships with Sonic by requesting the player to complete side quests. Sonic’s friends project themselves as holograms in the real world while trapped, allowing them to interact with and advise Sonic. Action Chain Challenges, which also appear in the open zone, require the player to complete actions and increase their score. Getting an S-rank on all of them allows the player to utilize Sonic’s Spin Dash.