At the Game Awards two pieces of Sonic media were shown off. The first was the Sonic 2 movie trailer and I'm going to tell you right now, I'M HYPE for this movie! I can't WAIT for April! The second piece was a trailer for the new 3D Sonic game, Sonic Frontiers which is the first official open world Sonic game. Seeing the trailer though, I'm kinda skeptical on how fun this game is really going to be given it is open world and we are dealing with Sonic the Hedgehog.
Every Sonic game since 1991 has been somewhat linear. This has allowed Sonic Team to create interesting level design that encourages momentum based platforming. The first concern I have with Frontiers is how are they going to be faithful to this design philosophy in an open world environment? Some might point to Sonic Utopia, a fanmade 3D open world Sonic game, as a way to keep this design philosophy. However, Sonic Utopia was always meant to be a playground of structures that could work in a momentum based Sonic game, not how to actually design an open world setting.
My second concern is how Sonic is going to control. Sonic has been using the boost formula (Article On Boost: https://www.torum.com/post/618afcde2df69f024829f97e) since Sonic Unleashed back in 2008 and is know for it's speed, but not it's sharp control. Even something as simple as running in a circle like you would in Sonic Adventure or Sonic Adventure 2 is not as easy in boost formula games. So how will we be able to move with accuracy when using the boost? Hopefully, Sonic Team thinks about this a lot before the game releases. I'm hoping that they just don't use the boost at all.
So do y'all think an open world sonic game will work or will it fail?