Sonic Frontiers developers once found themselves in a state of crisis: "If we fail here, there will be no chance"

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A make-or-break moment on the eve of Sonic's open world pivot

Sonic Frontiers
(Image credit: Sega)

Developers from the Sonic Frontiers team have shed some light on the project's road to release, revealing that in many ways, it was a make-or-break moment for the series.

Sega Of Japan sat down with three developers on the action-platformer, which marked the Blue Blur's first time zipping across an open-world setting. With such a drastically different, bigger structure than previous outings, the pressure on the team was at an all-time high.

According to translations from twitterer super_ult, designer Yuki Takahashi said the game took five years to fully make with a maximum of 120 developers working on it. While experimenting with a new 'open-zone' structure for Sonic, the team was supposedly "filled with a sense of crisis… we have to create something new… if we fail here, there will be no chance."

Sonic The Hedgehog would have likely continued in some form, regardless of Frontier's success or lack thereof. But had Sonic Frontiers underperformed, future titles could have seen an even more limited scope or budget. 

What does that "third generation" entail? Well, presumably more open-world Sonic games, no more pixel art entries for a while, and, probably, more films. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 opens later this year, featuring a hopefully moody Shadow and Jim Carrey's return as supervillain Dr. Eggman. 

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Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.