A beta version of the Sonic Frontiers 🦩map that was found in th🍎e Nintendo Switch version of the game and then ported over to the PC release shows that Kronos Island was originally going to be one big area, rather than being split off into Kronos, Rhea, and Ouranos.
During your Sonic Frontiers playthrough𒆙, you might notice that the first three islands follow a bit of a pattern - find and rescue a friend, collect their trinkets, do some mini-games, get the Chaos Emeralds, fight the Titan, and then leave. Then, out of nowhere, Rhea island decides to shake things up entirely by having none of that and just focusing on platforming, while Ouranos goes back to the formul🍷a somewhat but with Sage instead.
This random change in the pattern has been noted by a few Frontiers players, but it seems that there's a pretty good reason for it - Kronos Island was originally one larger area that had what we now know as Rhea and Ouranos all in one, instead of being split into three. of the map found in the Switch version that seems to prove that theory.
In the video, ĐeäTh runs around the beta version of the map and shows all of the ways that it has changed from the final version of the game. The main difference is that Sonic can travel into the Rhea and Ouranos areas of the map without any kind of loading screen, since they're technically all in the same place in this version of the game.
𒉰The video shows that, on this ver﷽sion of the map, Sonic would have gained access to Rhea by going up bounce pads on the waterfall, leading him seamlessly to that part of the island. Sonic is then able to move from Rhea to Ouranos just by exploring the area and running through it, rather than it being treated as separate.
Although three of the islands actually being combined is the biggest difference in this beta version of the map, it's not the only one. Beyond some puzzles that have changed location or changed function, there are also fewer random rails and platforms to climb around on, making the map seem a little emptier and more focused on environmental exploration than it is in the final game. Whether that's just because of it being a beta version isn't clear, but it's a different vibe altogether.
, who noted before the game's official release that Kronos Island was clearly split up later in the game's development, backing up the claim by showing that Rhea and Ouranos are tagged under "world 1" in the game's files. There's also an Egg Memo from Eggman that references "3 piddly islands" instead of the five that are in the game, showing that something changed during development.