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Venture Beat have had a in-depth chat with Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka about Sonic Frontiers and where he sees the Sonic franchise going forward. Mr. Iizuka says that what the team has been doing for the past few years has been laying the groundwork for the future of the Sonic the Hedgehog series for at least the next ten years. Obviously technology changes and new opportunities usher in to do more with computing power and the medium in general.
The team has decided to put Sonic into generations with the first generation being the classic SEGA Master System and SEGA Mega Drive 2D platforming games, then bringing Sonic into 3D with the more powerful SEGA Dreamcast with the Sonic Adventure games. Now he says Sonic is basically in the third generation due to the computing power of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 opening up larger worlds for Sonic to thrive in for the years to come. Mr. Iizuka reiterated that he can’t wait for people to play the finished version of Sonic Frontiers which is scheduled for all current platforms including the Nintendo Switch later this year.
“When we look at the previous games, the first generation was side-scrolling, that classic Sonic gameplay. The second generation was the more modern gameplay, from Sonic Adventure on. What we’re doing now is taking the next step. This is the third generation, almost. We know we’re showing fans something new that maybe doesn’t make sense to them yet.
But we really wanted to think about where we need to take Sonic for the next 10 years. What kind of gameplay do we need to start building out to keep people excited for the future? Sonic Frontiers is that next step for the next 10 years. We hope that fans believe in us and that they enjoy what we’re showing them. We’re looking forward to when they get to play it and really understand what it’s about.”