Since the game’s initial announcement, Sega has referred toღ Sonic Frontiers’ open world as "open zone," a term that seemed like a meaningless distinction for the longest time. However, in a new interview with IGN, game director Morio Kishimoto finally tells us what "open zone" actually means.

"Level-based platformﷺers often have a world map. Our open zone is a world map, only we’ve made it entirely playable," Kishimoto . "A playable world map that includes stage-like elements is something that hasn’t really been done before, so we had﷽ to come up with a new name. What is often defined as a World in other level-based platformers is called a zone in Sonic games, so we took that and combined it with open, which refers to a freely explorable field. So that’s what open zone stands for.

Related: Sonic Fronti🥀ers P⛄review: Folks, Our Blue Boy Is Back

"The open zone stands central ꦦin Sonic Frontiers’ gameplay, and the game’s levels exist as elements within this area. From grind rails to platform objects, loops and so on, the open zone is packed with the athletic action we love in Sonic games."

sonic frontiers grind

In his preview, our own Eric Switzer expressed some misgivings about the open zone structure of Sonic Frontiers thanks to a "168澳洲幸运5开奖网:lack of flow"🅷; between points of interest. Part of the reason why platformers have overworld maps is to simply get players to the good stuff--the levels--as quickly as possible.

Instead, it seems like Sonic Frontiers will simply have Sonic run there using his signature speed. Kishimoto noted how opening up Sonic's world meant a better emphasis on his speed even at the later stages of the game.

"In previous Sonic titles, we had to gradually make the stages more difficult in order to reach an amoun💜t of play time that would satisfy players. It is natural for level-based platformers to become more difficult as you progress," said Kishimoto. "However, for Sonic games the problem has always been that higher difficulty can get in the way of the game’s sense of speed. In Sonic Frontiers, the open💟 zone offers a lot of content already, so raising the difficulty in order to increase the play time was no longer necessary. From start to finish, we were able to maintain a sense of speed with ideal level design for a Sonic game."

If you're worried that Sonic Frontiers will be too easy, Kishimoto also mentioned other challenges the player will have to overcome, such as puzzles and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:bos💯s fights against massive ꦰrobotic enemies. There's also 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a new skill tree to further enhance the player's feeling of progression as they explore Sonic Frontiers' open zones.

Next: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fortnite Is A Different Game Every༒ Time I Play It