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Sonic Frontiers was met with surprisingly decent reviews when it launched in November. Yet despite this, it was still seen on the whole as a 3/5 affair, so no one was expecting its gameplay to win any major awards. They were, however, hoping that the soundtrack would be shown some love, as the game is chock full of new tracks, spanning multiple genres. And now, it could very well win an accolade for its bops.
The Steam Awards nominations have been revealed, and it's good news for Sonic fans. Frontiers has actually been nominated for the Best Soundtrack of 2022, going up against Metal: Hellsinger, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, Persona 5 Royal, and Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix+.
This comes after a bitter, and rather ugly, battle to see Sonic Frontiers win the Players' Voice prize at The Game Awards year - a feat it lost to Genshin Impact. This could be Frontiers' last chance to pick up a major accolade too, but it's at least a category it actually has a chance of winning in.
The music of Sonic Frontiers has variety in its favour, offering multiple different genres across its 150 tracks. Most notably, there are three tracks featuring Sleeping With Sirens vocalist Kellin Quinn, played across all of the Titan battles. Another highlight has to be Vandalize by ONE OK ROCK, which is not only a bop, but also sported some very naughty lyrics when it originally dropped. Seriously, just listen.
Even what is largely considered to be the worst level in the game is elevated by a banging backing track. Stage 1-2, the second Cyber Space level in the game, has an S rank requirement of just 55 seconds. At the very least, you shouldn't get too tired of the music, which is handy considering it took me an ungodly amount of resets to complete all the challenges.
Thankfully, unlike the dreaded Players' Voice category, we aren't able to track the results in real time. This will hopefully make the campaign to secure the top spot for Sonic a whole lot less toxic for everyone involved, with fans simply casting their vote and waiting for the results to come in on January 3.
Admittedly though, Sonic fans will have to show up in force to beat Persona 5 Royal. Even the most loyal blue blur stans have to admit that Persona 5 is full of bangers too, and has already had years to win over the masses with its soundtrack.
Whatever the case, it's good news for Sega. The company published three of the five games nominated for Best Soundtrack, continuing its proud legacy of going all in on the music. Hey, it's even proven that it can make pretty good games when it sets its mind to it, so that's nice too.