Sega is full speed ahead on Sonic Frontiers despite concerned fans asking for the game to be delayed. The past two weeks have seen multiple previews of Sonic’s first open world game (or "open zone", as Sega likes to call it) with trailers revealing combat against massive Shadow of the Colossus-style enemies, new Sonic abilities, and even an animated prologue.
However, fans have noted that Sonic Frontiers’ world appears fairly empty without any sense of momentum taking Sonic from one spot to the next. Some have even said that Sonic fan games look more interesting than Sonic Frontiers.
In an interview with VGC, Sonic Team studio head Takashi Iizuka said that Sega has been keeping track of fan reactions on social media, but that won’t be enough to delay Sonic Frontiers. Not because Sega is ignoring fan opinions, but Iizuka thinks that fans really can’t criticize a game they haven’t played yet.
"If people come to Gamescom or Tokyo Game Show, [they can] get that hands-on experience to play the game and understand what the game is," said Iizuka. "Because right now we’re just kind of watching videos of people reacting to what they believe the game to be."
As for what might delay Sonic Frontiers, Iizuka said the only thing that would delay the game at this point would be if the "development team all gets coronavirus."
That doesn’t mean Sega isn’t listening to fans. On the contrary--Sega has been playtesting Sonic Frontiers extensively, with most of that feedback being fairly positive.
"From our playtesting results we have been iterating, we have been listening to the comments that come back, but we’ve also been getting a lot of great feedback from people who rate the game and are like, ‘I had a lot of fun playing this game, I’d give it like an 80 or 90 point score out of 100’," said Iizuka. "So we do feel that we’re getting to the point where this game is done, and people will like it, and we do want to get that game into our fans’ hands as soon as possible."
Our own Eric Switzer recently got to try a 30-minute demo of Sonic Frontiers, and he said it was "the best 3D Sonic game I’ve played in a decade." Read more about the first open-world Sonic game in our preview here.