Last week, Sega revealed the first gameplay for the long-anticipated latest entry in theSonic the Hedgehogfranchise,Sonic Frontiers. This new entry was first announced in summer 2021, and is set to be theSonicfranchise’s first foray into open-world game design, taking inspiration from games likeThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game is slated to release later this year, however after recent gameplay reveals, fans are calling forSonic Frontiersto be delayed to 2023.
The reason for this is due to controversy surrounding the gameplay reveal, which has been heavily criticized for looking very unpolished in terms of visuals and art direction. The trailer’s gameplay has also been criticized for being hard to understand, as both showcases for the exploration and combat feature no commentary explaining what the purpose of the gameplay is, and feature no user interface elements to follow. The whole scenario isvery similar to the 2020 gameplay reveal ofHalo Infinite, which Microsoft and 343 Industries received a similar level of backlash for.
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How Sonic Frontiers' Reveal Invokes Halo Infinite’s
In July 2020, Microsoft held its Xbox Games Showcase in which, two full years after its first reveal at E3 2018, gameplay was revealed for the sixth main entry in theHaloseries. The gameplay trailer for Halo Infinite contained eight minutes of uncut gameplay footage from the upcoming game, and showcased the franchise’s first footage in an open-world environment. The trailer was immediately met with backlash however, with many fans criticizing the underwhelming visuals of the game, which was set to be a launch title for Xbox’s then-upcoming Xbox Series X and S consoles. The trailer even sparked the birth of a viral meme based on the game’s underwhelming visuals,in which an unpolished looking brute model was dubbed ‘“Craig the Brute.”
The fallout from Microsoft’s reveal ofHalo Infinitewas so massive that a month later Xbox made the shocking announcement thatHalo Infinitewould be delayed to 2021. Eventually,Infinitereleased over a full year after the launch of the Xbox Series X/S, leaving the consoles without their flagship exclusive.
It’s not hard to seethe similarities betweenSonic FrontiersandHalo Infinite’s gameplay reveals; both have been widely criticized for failing to contextualize new gameplay concepts that fans are unfamiliar with, and both were showcased with visual and art direction changes that look very jarring and in many ways unpolished.Sonic Frontiers, much likeHalo Infinite, is also coming at a point where fans have waited a long time for the next entry after being disappointed with the last major entry in the series – in theSonicfranchise’s case 2017’sSonic Forces, and in the Halo franchise’s case it was 2015’sHalo 5: Guardians.
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How Sonic Frontiers Can Avoid Halo Infinite’s Problems
Ultimately, Microsoft made the right call withHalo Infinite. While the decision was likely very difficult,Halo Infinitereceived an extra year of development thanks to the decision to delay the game to December 2021, despite its multiplayer launching in November. Microsoft banked a lot onHalo Infinitebeing a platform for the next decade of content for theHalofranchise, so it needed to do right by the audience out of the gate.
While it can definitely be argued that if both the developer and publisher succeeded at this, with many fanscriticizing the excruciatingly slow drip-feed of content sinceInfinite’s launch, the launch itself was a huge success. At launch,Halo Infinitereceived a Metacritic score of 87%, an average of over 100,000 active players, and even won a fan-voted category at The Game Awards dubbed Player’s Voice. By January 2022, only a month after launch,Halo Infinitehad received over 20 million players, likely due to its online mode being free-to-play, but nevertheless, the game was a quantifiable success.
This is why delayingSonic Frontiersto 2023 is likely the right call for Sega and Sonic Team. The game is releasing at a point of new beginnings for the franchise, especially coming off the success of theSonic the Hedgehogfilm franchise and the upcoming Netflix animated seriesSonic Prime. Fans are hungry for a newSonicgame, but Sega has continuously fumbled new entries with the controversy surrounding the DLC and pricing ofSonic Origins, andthe incredibly rough launch ofSonic Colors: Ultimatein 2021.
Sonic Frontierscould be a make or break moment, as fan confidence in Sonic Team is at an all-time low. The difficult announcement ofaSonic Frontiersdelay could help to redeem some fans’ expectationsfor the game, and could see it come out the gate as a surprise success for theSonicfranchise just asHalo Infinitewas for theHalofranchise.
Sonic Frontierswill release in Holiday 2022 on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
