For producer Takashi Iizuka, the release of Sonic Frontiers will mark a turning point for the world’s blue hedgehog video games. SAW. Released on PC and consoles on November 8, Sonic’s new adventure is able to capitalize on the success of two feature films in theaters, while finally delivering great 3D gameplay to longtime fans after years of barely passable episodes.
Iizuka hopes Sonic will be popular enough to have his own theme park in the next three decades, but right now the Japanese producer is focusing on the present. On the occasion of a press event organized by SEGA, Interviewed Takashi Iizuka to ask about Sonic Frontiersevolution and the effects that cause Sonic Team to overturn a formula that has always remained the same.
Interview with Takashi Iizuka
Sonic Frontiers represents a turning point for the series, but what was the moment when you finally decided to change course?
In over 30 years, Sonic’s video games have seen several major changes. The first big change was when we moved from the 2D gameplay of Sonic the Hedgehog to the 3D worlds of Sonic Adventure. Back then, the reason was purely technological: consoles had evolved to the point where we couldn’t limit ourselves to just 2D games, but we needed to move to the third dimension and deliver a game that lived up to the public’s expectations. We are facing another big change with Sonic Frontiers, but this time technology has nothing to do with it. In recent years, we’ve noticed that while Sonic has always had linear gameplay, the public has begun to prefer games with a high level of freedom. with the expectations users have today. So we sat down and discussed how we could add more freedom and what the gameplay would be for the series over the next ten or twenty years.
When the game was unveiled at Summer Game Fest, the reception was pretty negative, and everyone who tried the demo spoke pretty badly about it. Then, feedback has improved over the past few months, so can you tell us what you think went wrong in June?
At that time the game was still in an immature version, an open-air construction site. The demo we brought to Summer Game Fest had an incomplete design, and there were still many changes that needed to be made to improve the game. But at Gamescom we presented ourselves a more advanced beta with many additions and improvements planned: at that point the public started to notice the progress.
At this point, do you think the Sonic Frontiers setting will be the setting SEGA will adopt for Sonic in 3D from now on?
“We released Sonic Mania and Sonic Origins this year because we still have a lot of fans who love that classic 2D action platformer game and we will definitely continue to bring these types of games. Even when we talk about 3D episodes, we know it’s out there who loves arcade sequences and episodes the most. It’s part of the audience that likes to finish as soon as possible, so we’ll try to please them too. But speaking of the main episodes, we want future Sonic games to continue to evolve. The Open Zone concept we introduced with Frontiers”.
So the levels in Cyber Space in Sonic Frontiers were designed primarily to please longtime fans?
“Yes definitely”.
In Frontiers, Sonic transforms into Super Sonic to face the Titans, but the impression is that he’s more consistently integrated than in other episodes. Can you tell us more?
“In previous games Super Sonic was used as a tool to finish the story, as a tool to defeat the final boss. It was the culmination of the whole adventure. But in Sonic Frontiers there is a Titan on every island and you can’t do that. Beat him. Using Sonic’s normal skills. This That’s why we wanted to take the entire combat system to the extreme using Super Sonic and test the player with all the skills they learned while exploring the island.”
Speaking of abilities: It looks like you’ve abandoned many of the traditions of the series as Sonic no longer has some of his historical techniques like Spin Shot.
“Initially we took all of Sonic’s legacy techniques, added a skill tree, and put in the dynamics of the Cyberloop. The goal was to keep Sonic’s core skills intact, but during testing we found that some techniques became useless after adding more functional ones and one of them was Bolted. It was Snap. In short, we removed some actions that were not crucial or necessary to complete the game because now there are others that play the same role or do it better”.
Did the success of the two films affect the development of Sonic Frontiers in any way?
It was a dream come true to see Sonic become a Hollywood star in a movie that many watched and liked. And its success in cinema is crucial to Sonic’s future, as it has brought in a lot of new fans who are now looking forward to new productions. But when we started developing Sonic Frontiers, the movie wasn’t out yet and we didn’t know if it would be successful. However, we wanted to make sure we included options designed for an audience that has never played a Sonic game before so they can have fun even if they don’t have years of experience in the series. An example is the “Action Style” mode, which is designed to make the game more familiar to beginners and less hectic. There are also many other options to change the speed of the camera, the maximum speed Sonic reaches, or the steering sensitivity to tailor the experience to your needs. That way, hardcore fans with years of experience in Sonic games can have as much fun as those who are approaching the series for the first time.
These accessibility options can bring a disabled viewer even closer to the show. Given the ever-increasing interest in the subject, is this something you consider?
To clarify: the mentioned options are primarily aimed at fans of action games who do not have much experience with the speed of Sonic games, but are still used to playing action games. With these settings, the goal is to let players in that slice get closer to the series with Sonic Frontiers for the first time and still have fun. However, we did not do an in-depth analysis of the type of accessibility that appeals to people with different needs and requirements. Not easy with Sonic. I was in France once and met a totally blind fan who told me he was a huge fan of Sonic games. I curiously asked how he managed to play them, and he said that as long as you keep moving to the right, especially in the more classic 2D levels, sooner or later you reach the end of the level. But first of all, he used the sound effect of the rings: as long as he kept hearing the rings, he knew he was going in the right direction. And so even though he couldn’t see what was happening on the screen, he still managed to play the game and have fun. This is a possibility the development team never thought of: A lucky game design accident. Some types of games are definitely more suitable than others and it is very difficult to get everyone to play our games no matter what their limitations and obstacles are. But the team’s mentality has always been to make every game accessible and enjoyable for as many people as possible, and that’s a philosophy we’ll continue to uphold.
When playing Sonic Frontiers, it’s hard not to feel like Breath of the Wild was an inspiration for the open map. Is this an impression?
While looking at what other games were doing, we tried to do something very different with open world maps from RPG and action. Our goal was to take the fast, simple platforming experience of the old Sonics and bring it into a completely free game. This freedom led to the “open zone” concept we proposed in Sonic Frontiers. So for us, Breath of the Wild is a completely different game: yes, similarities and comparisons can be made, but our starting point is completely different.
In a game where you can freely explore the map and decide the pace of progression independently, how hard was it to make a story that didn’t look too fragmented and didn’t hinder the freedom of exploration at the same time?
This was a fundamental question. Previous Sonic games had a very up-to-date narrative, with events narrated in a linear fashion as they played through various levels. But now we have an open and freely explorable world where you can walk around and do whatever you want: so we had to rethink the way we told the story and make it as simple as possible. What was important to us was to make the plot understandable to everyone, regardless of the time spent exploring. So you can focus on the main story, go to the end and get an idea of what is happening on the island. But you can also solve all these side quests that reveal new details about what happened to Sonic, his friends and the inhabitants of the island. So if you really want to know every detail, you have to roll up your sleeves and play not only the main story but also all the extra activities hidden around.
Can you tell me how many people made up the Sonic Frontiers development team compared to parts like Sonic Forces?
I can’t go into details, but we’re definitely talking about a larger group compared to the development team that made Sonic Forces. It’s not that big though, and we’re definitely way behind other giant AAA game development teams. Sonic Frontiers is still a big game, so even though the team is smaller than the others, it made up for it by working harder to create a lot of content.
Now that Sonic Frontiers development is finally complete and you have an overview of the project, what are you most proud of?
Of course, what makes me most happy is to finally be able to say that I have brought next-gen gameplay to life in Sonic 3D games. Everyone on the team worked hard and I believe they did a great job. It is already a great pleasure to be able to present the result of this work to people, but above all, getting positive feedback from those who tried the game at Gamescom and TGS was the thing that made us most happy.
Source: Multiplayer
