Sonic Frontiers director Morio Kishimoto has offered one of his clearest comments yet on where the series could go after Frontiers, saying the team intends to further evolve the open-zone approach in the next title.
The comments come from the second instalment of Kishimoto’s new “It’s a Column, but I Want to Talk With Everyone!” series, which has already received more than 350 questions and messages from fans.
One question asked whether Kishimoto felt the team had succeeded with its attempt at open-zone gameplay and expressed hope that the next game would allow players to explore an even more evolved version of that concept.
Kishimoto’s answer was direct.
“Yes! I definitely felt we had something there,” Kishimoto said. “In the next title as well, we’ll work hard to achieve an evolution that meets everyone’s expectations and surprises you even more.”
While Kishimoto did not provide any details about the next game, his response strongly indicates that Sonic Frontiers’ open-zone concept remains part of the development direction the team intends to build upon rather than abandon.
The column also addressed another major question surrounding 3D Sonic gameplay: Boost versus Spin Dash.
Kishimoto said the development team struggled with that decision during production of Sonic Frontiers.
“Even during the development of Sonic Frontiers, we agonized over whether it should be Boost or Spin Dash,” he explained.
The original release ultimately centered its movement around Boost, but the Spin Dash was later introduced through a free update following feedback from players.
For Kishimoto, implementing both systems highlighted a much broader challenge. The choice between Boost and Spin Dash affects Sonic’s movement, physics, player behavior, and eventually the level design built around those systems.
He therefore described finding the best approach to Sonic’s movement as an important development crossroads that the team intends to continue exploring.
Kishimoto also revealed that Sonic Frontiers’ post-launch updates became considerably more ambitious than originally planned because of the response from players.
The team initially viewed the updates as an opportunity to complete ideas that had been left unfinished during development. After receiving a large amount of encouragement, feedback, and requests following the game’s release, however, Kishimoto decided that simply finishing those ideas was no longer enough.
The goal became to “respond to that gratitude and expectation, and then surprise everyone even further.”
That expanded scope resulted in additions such as the Spin Dash, changes to platforming that made greater use of Sonic’s own movement speed instead of relying as heavily on stage gimmicks, greater camera freedom during gameplay, and even an alternative final boss encounter.
Kishimoto noted that these additions were created with a limited post-launch development team and thanked the staff who helped make the larger update plans possible.
The second column follows the launch of the series last month, when Kishimoto invited fans to submit questions about Sonic Frontiers: Definitive Edition, the original game’s development, and his wider work on the Sonic series. He says more than 350 responses have now been submitted.
That response has also changed the column’s schedule. Kishimoto originally planned to use the second instalment to discuss the process that led to the creation of Sonic Frontiers, but has postponed that subject so he can continue responding directly to fans first.
For now, the biggest takeaway is that Sonic Team appears far from finished with the ideas introduced by Sonic Frontiers. Kishimoto sees further potential in open-zone gameplay, while fundamental questions surrounding Sonic’s movement, including the balance between Boost, Spin Dash, physics, and level design, remain areas the team intends to keep challenging itself with.
Stay tuned to Sonic City for more Sonic Frontiers News and Updates.
Source: Sonic Channel
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