New details on Sonic Frontiers' story, gameplay, enemies, and more

IGN has gone hands-on with Sonic Frontiers to see how the game is shaping up, and they’ve come away with a bunch of new details and info on Sonic’s next big adventure. We’ve gathered up the juiciest bits and put them into bullet point for below.

It’s important to note that IGN says the footage, screens, and gameplay we’ve seen from the game up to now all comes from an early build, and there’s more work to be done before the game launches.

• the story involves Sonic flying into a wormhole with Tails and Amy
• Sonic gets separated from his friends on an isolated island
• Sonic is guided by a mysterious AI voice that tasks him with finding the Chaos Emeralds
• the soundtrack uses minimalist piano melodies
• the landscape is littered with bumper springs, grindable rails, ramps, and more
• Sonic can enter a line of rings to light speed dash
• completing puzzles and challenges uncovers sections of your map
• one example of a puzzle has Sonic reorient a statue the correct way
• another puzzle tasks Sonic with jumping back and forth between colored tiles
• Sonic’s Cyloop ability is used to draw circles around certain objects to interact with them
• there are races against the clock where you have to get from point A to point B
• the landscape is filled with wandering enemies and mini-bosses
• Sonic has a new array of incredibly flashy attacks
• Sonic can quickly dodge and parry attacks with the right timing
• Sonic’s homing attack is more impactful, and allows for multiple follow-ups
• one enemy has an impenetrable shell that can expand into spinning blades
• Sonic can parry the blades or use the Cyloop to encircle the enemy
• defeating enemies will reward you with EXP that you can use to purchase new skills
• skills are purchased via a skill tree
• there are also a handful of enormous world bosses, one of which is named Asura
• to beat Asura, you first have to bait the monster into slamming the ground
• from here, you boost up its arm in order to reach the weak spots on its head
• Sonic must hunt down and defeat these bosses in order to collect portal gears
• portal gears open up portals that lead to bite-sized linear stages
• these classic levels each come with a handful of optional goals
• each goal rewards you with a vault key, which are used to unlock Chaos Emerald