Sonic Frontiers’ director, Morio Kishimoto says that the game is a “global playtest” adding that it’s “not quite there yet”.
Just by looking at these comments alone, it doesn’t give a good impression of Sonic Frontiers. During this generation, day-one and post-launch patches are more or less expected. To be fair, I believe that post-launch patches are a good thing. If implemented fairly.
Post-launch updates can be good
After all, no matter how good of a state a game might launch in, previously unforeseen eras can occur. Back in the 80s, 90s and even early 2000s, if a game launched buggy, there was no fix. The only course of action to take was to keep the game or return it, as long as you still had the receipt.
However, for better or worse, if a modern-day game encounters bugs and glitches, at least they can be ironed out with a patch. That being said, when a game is knowingly released in a poor state, there’s little defence that can be made.
Just take a look at the fiasco surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 during its launch. Sure, the game is in a good state now, but it initially launched in a very poor and unacceptable state. Sadly, it seems that the Sonic Frontiers director suggests that the game knowingly launched in not the best state.
Is Sonic Frontiers a global playtest?
In a tweet spotted by VGC (thanks Eurogamer), Kishimoto said that he’s “relieved” that the game is out and that he is “checking the opinions of the critics and everyone”, adding that it still has “a long way to go.” Yeah, that does look good.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you because I’ve been busy since the release date,” Kishimoto tweeted to his followers. “I’m relieved that the release date has arrived and that it seems to have reached everyone safely.
“We are checking the opinions of the critics and everyone. As you pointed out, we still have a long way to go, and we take this seriously as a global playtest”.
When gameplay was revealed for Sonic Frontiers earlier in the year, the video game community wasn’t overly impressed. The open (zone) world looked bland, pop-ins were very prominent and visually, it didn’t look all that great.
Sadly, while there seems to be a good game in there, some of those issues are still apparent at launch. Furthermore, the words of Kishimoto seem to back up some concerns from fans.
Have you played Sonic Frontiers?
Have you played Sonic Frontiers and what are your thoughts on the game? Let us know across our social media channels.
Sonic Frontiers is out now for PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.
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