It’s painfully brief, but Sega and Sonic Team released a short teaser clip for Sonic Frontiers, showcasing abilities, combat, a boss fight, and more. We only got seconds of each feature to look at, but I do like what I see. Set to a somber piano melody, the Sonic Frontiers teaser gives us a taste of what to expect before the game gets covered more fully in June.
The 38-second clip was shared by the Sonic Twitter account, as part of IGN First. It starts off with what we’ve seen before, with Sonic speeding through a forest. But everything after that? New and blue, baby.
Frontiers is an “open-zone game.” It’s the first in the Sonic franchise to feature a fully explorable world as opposed to levels or zones with a hub area. Sonic appears to run on large rings like a hamster wheel in order to pinpoint map features. Next, we get a glimpse of combat. Creating a circle around enemies with a blue streak that follows Sonic results in an explosion. If you’ve played Kirby and the Forgotten Land recently, think of the Drill ability. I’m assuming you can activate this power in Sonic Frontiers by holding down a button.
Enjoy this small preview of Sonic Frontiers, and tune in all June long for the @IGN First cover story for more world-exclusive reveals! pic.twitter.com/iZhaFtSwio
— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) May 31, 2022
New tricks up his gloves
About the halfway point, we see a couple of new combat abilities. Sonic still clearly has his homing attack in Frontiers, but the teaser shows he can dish out more. After homing onto an enemy, Sonic can apparently keep attacking with a melee move. Sonic also has an ability that’ll let him dash multiple times toward an enemy. He finishes off his badnik foe with a whirlwind attack.
After a brief second showing off some grinding (of course that’s back), we meet our first boss. I’m speculating that the massive bot in the teaser is some kind of field boss, as opposed to a Robotnik-level threat. It’s a big boy, though, and it appears you can beat it by using its attacks against it. After slamming down its hand, Sonic runs up the arm to deliver a decisive blow to the head.
Unfortunately, that’s about all we get for Sonic Frontiers today. The game was rumored to be shown off during Summer Game Fest next week. But since this will be part of IGN First, it’ll more likely get featured during the outlet’s Summer of Gaming 2022 event. Either way, we’ll get more information on the game next month.
Sonic Frontiers will launch this year alongside Sonic Origins, both celebrating the blue blur’s 30th anniversary. Even though that happened last year (whoops). The former was delayed out of 2021 to “brush up the quality,” but it’s set to release during the holidays. Sonic Origins, on the other hand, launches on June 23.
