Fans can “look forward” to more 2D ‘Sonic’ games, claims ‘Frontiers’ director

Sonic Frontiers director Morio Kishimoto has said fans can “look forward” to more 2D Sonic The Hedgehog games.

• READ MORE: ‘Sonic Frontiers’ review: slow and unsteady

Despite Sega having an early run of success with 2D side-scrolling Sonic The Hedgehog games, in recent years the studio has focused on 3D adventures like the “open-zone” of Frontiers.

However in a new tweet, Kishimoto has suggested Sonic Team could be working on a brand new 2D game.

Replying to a question about the potential of more games like Sonic The Hedgehog 4, the 2010 side-scrolling platformer, Kishimoto wrote: “In addition to 3D Sonic games, Sonic games also have side-scrolling Sonic games, so please look forward to them!”

こんにちは。日本語に翻訳していただきありがとうございました。ディンプス社が制作したソニックゲームですね。ソニックゲームは、3Dのソニックゲームとは別に、横スクロール型のソニックゲームもあるので、楽しみにしていて下さいね！

— Morio Kishimoto (@moq_46) February 12, 2023

It comes after Sonic Team said that 2022’s Sonic Frontiers laid the foundations for the “future” of the franchise, with its open-zone format set to become a permanent addition.

Shortly after the release of the game, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka said that Sonic Frontiers marks “another defining moment for the franchise” with the game’s open-zone, which allowed players to roam large segments of the map and explore it in their own time. He went on to say that the last defining moment was “bringing Sonic fully into the 3D world with Sonic Adventure,” in 1998.

“I am very excited for Sonic to join this revolutionary step in immersive gaming worlds. Our goal for Sonic Frontiers was to create a game that would be the cornerstone of future Sonic games,” he added.

Prior to that, Iizuka said that Frontiers was the “next step for the next ten years” and revealed that he already knows what Sonic game comes next.

In a three-star review, NME said: “A game caught between ideas, Sonic Frontiers is bland and unfulfilling. Despite an emotional story and thrilling Portal stages, Sega’s open-world format falls flat due to repetitive grinding and a lack of substance.”

In other news, Zoid Kirsch, senior gameplay engineer for 2002’s Metroid Prime and its 2004 sequel Echoes, has criticised Nintendo’s Metroid Prime Remasted for not crediting the original team.

Tech lead Jack Mathews went on to call the omission a “travesty”.

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