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Sonic Frontiers is basically Breath of the Wild with hedgehogs

After a very cryptic original teaser trailer, we finally got a good look at the new mainline Sonic the Hedgehog game titled Sonic Frontiers. The game seems to be taking the blue hedgehog in a different direction than the recent boost formula games and 2D/3D hybrids, as it sports a new open-world style ripped straight from Breath of the Wild that fans will be able to experience in 2022.

Sonic Frontiers - Announce Trailer

Sonic Frontiers was originally revealed in a Sonic Central stream by Sega in May, giving us a small look at what’s to come. This initial trailer started tons of rumors and theories, one being an alleged leak that the game would go open world, taking notes from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Now that we’ve gotten our first look, it’s clear the leak was on the nose. The world shows some very obvious inspiration from BOTW, and even includes tons of Shieikah Tower-like structures around the map.

The Game Awards also featured the debut trailer for Sonic’s next big-screen adventure, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Stars Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey introduced the trailer, which gave us a closer look at Tails and a very Sonic 3-esque Knuckles, rocking the old attitude he brought with him in his initial appearance. The film seems to be taking many cues from a mix of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure.

Sonic Frontiers comes to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S next yearin time for the holidays. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 hits theaters on April 8.

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DeAngelo Epps
De'Angelo Epps is a gaming writer passionate about the culture, communities, and industry surrounding gaming. His work ranges…
Even while moving forward, Sonic Frontiers never forgets the series’ past
Sonic and Knuckles (Cyber Space form) on Ares Island in Sonic Frontiers.

Throughout my nearly 20 hours of playing through Sonic Frontiers, running through Starfall Islands, and getting to the bottom of Sonic's friends getting stuck in digital purgatory, I kept getting blasts from the past. The newly released adventure is filled with wonderful callbacks to previous games, both in terms of gameplay and story canon. It may be a brand new "open-zone" game, but it beautifully blends modern open-zone gameplay mechanics with classic side-scrolling ones. Some of the previous Sonic titles have sort of done that before, including Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Forces, but Frontiers stands out in how respectfully it treats the rest of the series.

What stuck out to me the most during my playthrough is how Sega uses the game to reflect on some of the best (and worst) moments in the Sonic series in some cutscenes. Despite marking the beginning of a new era for the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the Blue Blur's latest outing never forgot to honor where he and his friends have been in the last 31 years (or how long they’ve actually been together and fighting Dr. Eggman canonically since time passes differently in their world).
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All the references that Sonic Frontiers made to previous installments are thanks to writer Ian Flynn's wealth of lore knowledge that spans back decades. Flynn famously wrote the Blue Blur's comics at Archie and IDW (the latter's comics start after the events of Forces, after all), with each mention being what he terms a Flynn-ism. Case in point, the game makes several references to the Knuckles’ history in the series, including Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure.

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sonic frontiers release date

Sonic has tried his hand at many genres over his career. He's obviously most well-known for his 2D and 3D high-speed platforming but has also starred in racers, sports games, fighters, and even pinball games. Sonic Frontiers is another 3D adventure, but with a heavier emphasis on RPG mechanics than ever before. Not only will you be leveling up Sonic's stats, including his speed, but you will also unlock new abilities via a skill tree.

The skill tree itself in Sonic Frontiers is not too complex. You have a starting point and two main branches, but the number of skill points each skill costs goes up exponentially. This makes selecting what skill to get first far more important since you likely won't get your next one for quite a while if you don't like it. Rather than pick a dud, here are the best skills to unlock in Sonic Frontiers.

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Sonic looks surprised in a Sonic Frontiers trailer.

Grab your chili dogs and start blasting some Crush 40 because Sonic is back in action in his latest 3D adventure. When Sonic Frontiers was originally shown off, many people classified it as a Breath of the Wild-like game due to it being set in a massive open world. In some ways, that comparison is correct, but approaching this game like it's another Zelda title will only trip you up. While it doesn't reinvent any individual mechanic, Sonic Frontiers puts its own spin (dash) on many open-world tropes.

Fans of Sonic games - either 2D, 3D, or both -- will be in for some major surprises when starting Sonic Frontiers. The open world, or open-zone as Sonic Team has classified it, is easy enough to understand, but all the new mechanics and systems can be overwhelming and confusing when put together. Before you break out into a sprint across this new adventure with the blue blur, here are some important tips and tricks to get started in Sonic Frontiers.

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