Sonic Frontiers Teaser Shows Off "Open Zone" Design

Sonic Frontiers is aiming to be a different kind of Sonic game, starting with its new open-world design--which Sega has dubbed "open-zone" after Sonic's area names. A new teaser trailer shows our first detailed look at the open world, and it looks like wide open spaces might just fit the hedgehog like a little white glove.

The teaser from IGN is only about 30 seconds long, but that's enough to see Sonic speeding his way over hilly fields, activating a device with his speedy running, battling enemies, rail-grinding, and running his way up a tower. It certainly still looks inspired by Zelda: Breath of the Wild, just like the first concept art we saw, even down to the more pensive music selection, and with this better look we can see how it applies some of those concepts to the character.

Sonic Frontiers is coming from Sonic Team Japan, led by Morio Kishimoto, who directed Sonic Lost World, Sonic Forces, and Sonic Colors. Sega wants this Sonic to garner high review scores as a "must-buy" game.

With various Not-E3 events lining up for the month of June, we expect to see more of Sonic Frontiers soon. In fact, Summer Game Fest Live, a show organized by Geoff Keighley, released an exhibitor list that includes Sega, so we may see a fuller debut there.