Sega announced Sonic Frontiers last December at The Game Awards 2021 as the first open-world Sonic the Hedgehog game. Since then, various little details have come out, such as that Sega delayed the game’s release to ensure better quality and target higher review scores. However, the title’s actual gameplay has remained a mystery, until now. IGN has revealed a short first gameplay teaser for Sonic Frontiers, ahead of a larger reveal tomorrow (available now).
It appears there are expansive, winding landscapes for Sonic to traverse, and the graphics lean more toward realistic than stylized. Sonic speeds on a device resembling a hamster wheel at one point, which seems to activate a beacon. Perhaps these are fast-travel points, and/or they identify nearby points of interest.
The Sonic Frontiers gameplay teaser also offers a glimpse of combat, which seems slightly more involved than just bopping robots on the head. For instance, Sonic speeds around one enemy in a circle to pop it into the air, leaving it vulnerable to attack. There is also some sort of giant enemy that Sonic scales in order to hit its weak points and destroy it.
Obviously, it’s too early to know if this game will actually be good, and more details are still coming tomorrow. But this gameplay teaser does its job of drumming up interest on Sonic Frontiers, which will come to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, and PC later this year.