Sonic Frontiers’ first free DLC pack is coming this week.
The pack is called ‘Sights, Sounds and Speed Update’, and it is coming on all platforms on March 23, 2023. So far, Sega have not shared the details regarding this update, but as reported by Video Games Chronicle, there were details on a Sonic Frontiers’ content roadmap shared by Sega, that hinted at what would be found in this DLC.
The roadmap suggests that Sonic Frontiers would add a Jukebox, a Photo Mode, and new Challenge modes.
There are two other DLC packs scheduled for release later in the year. The second DLC pack is labeled ‘Sonic’s Birthday’, so it may be arriving on June 23. It will have an Open Zone challenge mode and new Koco characters.
Finally, the third and final free DLC will have new story campaigns and new playable characters. We already expect Tails, Knuckles, and Amy will be made playable in the future.
Sega has revealed that Sonic Frontiers was able to sell very well in spite of its lower-than-expected Metacritic score. In this day and age, video game companies actually work towards chasing that higher meta score from various video game review outlets. It really isn’t fair to the game companies or developers, but it’s something investors have clung onto, with the assumption that higher Metacritic scores means more sales. Sonic Frontiers is the outlier that proves that that assumption can be wrong.
Sega has also stated that they plan to bring bigger budgets for Sonic Team for better Sonic games in the future, but much closer to that, Sega could be doing more to get the most out of Sonic Frontiers.
That could include things like introducing even more playable characters, fan favorites like Rouge the Bat and Shadow the Hedgehog, or perhaps deep cuts, like Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel from SegaSonic the Hedgehog.
They could also bring back a very popular fan favorite feature from previous Sonic games; Chao gardens. Since Sega had already clarified that Chao and Kocos are completely different creatures, there’s no reason that they couldn’t be added in in the future.
It certainly feels like there is a bit more potential to be mined from Sonic Frontiers before Sega even moves forward with a sequel, but perhaps fan momentum is moving towards just starting over to make a better game instead.
Sonic Frontiers is available to play on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. It is not Steam Deck certified, but many Deck owners have managed to get it running.
