The strange narrative around Sonic Frontiers continues. The reviews are in, and of course, the game can be improved in a host of different ways if the critics and fans are to be believed. But what to do with this feedback? Well it seems that Sonic Frontiers‘ Director, Morio Kishimoto has had some unique thoughts on the matter, sharing them with the world via Twitter on Friday, discussing how they are processing the feedback of fans of critics, and using it to better the current product. Interestingly, Kishimoto considers the game to be in a state of “Global Playtest,” a strange thing to say considering that Sonic Frontiers is a full-priced title that is available now on shelves.
I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you until now, because we’ve been busy since the release date. I’m relieved that the release date has arrived and that [the game] seems to have reached everyone safely. We are checking out the opinions of the critics and players. As you have pointed out, there are still areas where we are not quite there yet, and we will take this seriously as a global playtest.
Based upon the anecdotal responses in two Kishimoto’s tweet, fans don’t seem to be concerned by the game being referred to as being in a “global playtest” stage, clearly preferring the team to be looking at any incoming data, and finding ways to use it in a way that will lead to the bettering of the Sonic Frontiers experience. Many have used the opportunity to respond to the Director sharing their own praise and points of concern for the team to respond to.
While the team continues to work on improving Sonic Frontiers, there are other fans who are achieving all kinds of incredible feats in the game, while the number of concurrent players via Steam has already exceeded the best previously seen by the IP on the platform. The game currently also has the highest Metacritic User Score that the franchise has ever seen, despite its mixed to positive reception from critics.
Team Sonic is also hard at work addressing a major concern of some players – motion sickness, which has plagued a portion of the community, making the game unplayable currently to those people. Sonic Frontiers is also struggling to run at 60FPS across a number of platforms including the Xbox Series S, giving the developers something to address on a technical level in the shorter term.
Sonic Frontiers is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
