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In an interview with Famitsu, released yesterday in conjunction with Sonic Frontiers’ 1st anniversary, Sonic Team developers Sachiko Kawamura (Producer) and Morio Kishimoto (Director) have explained the making of this year’s content updates.
Kishimoto wishes to collect more feedback after The Final Horizon’s release, even comparing Sonic Frontiers to other heavy-hitters this year.
But if they haven’t bought it yet, I wonder how do they see this, what’s missing, and if they didn’t buy it, why it didn’t resonate with them… I would like to push this [open-zone] vision further by approaching game fans around the world to find out why they are not playing or finding it appealing, [which was] something we were not able to do this time.
If there was something in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Armored Core VI that was missing from Sonic Frontiers, we want to know! If there are still parts that don’t resonate [with game fans], we want to see what we can do to address them.
Kawamura explains the game’s success in Japan, and their efforts to appeal to Japanese audiences.
From the beginning of development, we wanted to achieve our goal of “selling in Japan,” so we were happy that we were able to increase the Japanese sales figures. How we were trying to achieve this was through the theme of “evolving Sonic.” I felt a sense of entrapment after making the standard Sonic for so long, and I felt that I had to make a change here…
I was able to communicate closely with the Japanese PR people about how we wanted to market the product and to whom we want to appeal [to].
Kishimoto and Kawamura explain how the game’s content updates came to be.
Kishimoto
Seeing [sales] momentum, it was decided by producer Kawamura and upper management that we would update the game.
We had plans for updates even before the game was released, but we initially envisioned doing compact seasonal updates, such as for Halloween. I believe it is thanks to everyone’s support that we have been able to make these “aggressive updates” that will evolve the game in such a big way and enrich the game play experience.
Kawamura
Since trust with the fan community is something Sega values, the company also encourages updates in terms of a close relationship with fans. However, I think it was a pretty big decision [by them] to allow us to do free updates of this scale.
We should build a relationship of mutual trust with fans in a way that responds to their feedback. Sonic has a very large fan community, so it is very important to determine how much you can appeal to them and how much you can service them.
Kishimoto
I received a variety of comments, opinions, and requests from fans, and I learned that our customers have high expectations for the three updates we had originally planned.
The process of thinking about how I and Sonic Team would receive and output these ideas was in itself completely different from the way I had made games in the past.
As I received the daily messages, I was guided by the fact that “Oh, there is such a way of looking at things, such an approach, such an idea,” and how I could interpret it and release it as an update for Sonic Frontiers. And I saw how the game was evolving more and more because of it.
Kishimoto touches on what he’s seen from Sonic Frontiers’ modding scene.
The “mod” culture that was flourishing overseas had emerged as a rival. There are some very skilled overseas users, and what we had planned to create as fan service turned out to be already up and running… (laughs)
I saw characters other than Sonic playable and new actions we were going to do for the update already working. I thought it was amazing (laughs).
If that’s the case, Sonic Team cannot release that content as an update. If the customers come that far, we are going even further to exceed expectations and subvert them.
We, the Sonic Team, have to take a unique approach and say, “This is what Amy’s actions are like in Sonic Frontiers.”
Kishimoto touches on The Final Horizon’s difficulty, a controversial aspect of the update.
However, there were more customers than expected who were making their Sonic debut with Sonic Frontiers, and looking at the feedback on social media, I feel that we should have prepared a more beginner-friendly difficulty level.
That’s right. The trial automatically becomes two levels easier after each failure; the difficulty level decreases by six times, but when you fail 12 times, the trial becomes easiest from the 13th play.
However, there may be some customers who have lost heart before the 12th play, and they may still find it difficult even on the 13th play. I think we should have lowered it a little more.
Finally, Kishimoto and Kawamura reveal the future for 3D Sonic games.
Kawamura
Director Kishimoto and I believe that this is the first step in the evolution of Sonic into the next generation.
Kishimoto
Since Sonic Frontiers proposed to the world the first step toward a different and new vision, I would like to take this opportunity to challenge Sonic games to get closer to that vision.
Ultimately, I want to challenge the world’s top studios to see if we, the Sonic Team, can deliver results and deliver achievements. I would like to push even harder.