The director of Sonic Frontiers, Morio Kishimoto, has suggested that the game was originally planned to have a multiplayer mode. This comes from a Twitter Q&A with fans, in which Kishimoto gives us a hint about what's next in the Sonic series.When asked about the lack of multiplayer in recent Sonic games, Kishimoto says that it's something the team is "always" looking at. However, he also explains that it is "difficult" to implement, especially as the devs are already working out how to make this next generation of Sonic games work for fans.After revealing that the devs do consider implementing multiplayer during development, Kishimoto went on to explain why they couldn't make it work this time around."I believe that it will be difficult to move on to the next step without first completing a third-generation Sonic game in single-player mode," says Kishimoto, referring to Frontiers being the start of Sonic's third generation. " As you know, the game itself still has a lot of issues, so we can't leave it alone."
Interestingly, this statement doesn't shoot down the idea of Frontiers or a future Sonic game getting multiplayer modes. It just seems that we'll have to wait until Sonic Team and Sega are happy with the single-player offerings, which definitely appear to be prioritised.
With all this talk of "generations" and future Sonic content, it's safe to say that Sonic Team is planning ahead. We already know that Frontiers is getting some additional content this year. including the ability to play as Tail, Knuckles, and Amy. Now, Kishimoto's statement could be implying that a multiplayer mode could be added down the line, but there's been no other talk of that.
This Q&A was also good news for fans of the older games, as Kishimoto confirmed that the devs haven't forgotten about them. As we reported earlier today, the director even hinted that future Sonic games could be influenced by Sonic Adventure gameplay. It remains to be seen if this means Sonic Adventure 3 is a real possibility.