Gamescom Highlight is Cursed – Will the Hedgehog Escape the Nightmare?

1. ingame
2. Gaming News

Created: 08/25/2022 12:53 p.m

Of: Philip Hansen

Sonic is racing back in 3D in 2022. At Gamescom 22, Sonic Frontiers triggers a hype. I hope the hedgehog doesn’t run straight into the wall again.

Cologne – Sonic Froniters by Sega will be released in 2022 for PS5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch and PC. After the fresh Gamescom trailer, the game is suddenly praised to the skies and the fans freak out. Fast paced gameplay in an open world with the iconic hedgehog sounds like fun. But has everyone forgotten the Sonic curse of the last 20 years? We present the new game and analyze what Sonic has screwed up in recent years.

Sonic Frontiers will be the highlight of Gamescom 2022 – new trailer shows what everyone wants to see

This is the new Sonic game: Sonic Frontiers has been in development for a while. Sega revealed at Gamescom 2022 that the official release date is November 8, 2022. The 30th anniversary was celebrated with a new trailer.

The new trailer for Sonic Frontiers, which was shown at Gamescom 2022, was really well received. Today, the clip has over 850,000 views and over 60,000 thumbs up only on the official Sonic the Hedgehog page. We see that Sonic is dashing through an open world at breakneck speed. It is interesting that Sonic wants to take on the confrontation with God of War Ragnarök, which starts on November 9th.

Check out the fast-paced Gamescom trailer here:

Finally an end to the curse? The first hands-on reports from Gamescom are indeed promising solid action and an excellent sense of speed in Sonic Frontiers. That would be a real novelty, because for a good 20 years the players have been hyped again and again by new Sonic games, only to then crash into a wall at full speed.

Sonic has been cursed for 20 years

This is the (inglorious) Sony story: In the 90s, Sonic was the big competitor of big boss Mario. The mascots of Sega and Nintendo fought duels for the hearts of the players on the 2D platforms. But when the video game world became three-dimensional around the 2000s, the sprinter Sonic of all things fell by the wayside.

Over the years one failure followed the other. After Sonic Adventures 2, which is more than 20 years old, there hasn’t been a strong Sonic game on the market (if we disregard remakes of the classics or party games). The ratings on the Metacritic page speak volumes – reviews and ratings are collected here and presented with a rating between 0 and 100.

• Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): 46 points
• Sonic Unleashed (2008): 60
• Sonic Colors (2010): 78 points
• Sonic: Lost World (2013): 63 points
• Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (2014): 32 points
• Sonic Forces (2017): 56 points

The remakes of the 2D classics such as “Sonic Mania Plus” (2018) still receive dream ratings of 91 points on Metacritic. It seems like Sonic just can’t function in an open 3D world these days. Curious, because “Sonic Adventures 2”, which was released in 2001, has a proud 89 points on meta criticism and kidnaps the hedgehog and cronies into just such a 3D world.

First hype, then crash: New games from Sonic have now become their own meme: the “Sonic Cycle”. In phase 1, i.e. the announcement, you only see fan-favorite Sonic in trailers, nowhere is there a trace of his unpopular “friends” (yes you, Silver, Shadow is okay). Players then directly describe Sonic’s glorious return to the market.

In phase 2, more and more information about the new Sonic game comes to the surface. Of course you can see all of your companions. The new sections do not show fast gameplay, but strange (and above all slow) mechanics or fights with swords.

Phase 3 is the complete crash when the fresh Sonic game celebrates its release. The ratings of the trade press are plummeting, the players are disappointed with the “new” Sonic and promise never to be hyped again – the eternal downfall of Sega’s once glorious mascot is then proclaimed anew every year.

Sonic Frontiers: preview of the new adventure in the open world

Is Sonic Frontiers getting any better? Can’t say that exactly yet. In any case, the new Gamescom trailer creates a little hype. The gameplay shown is fast, the fans are excited. However, the first testers from Gamescom attest that the game plays as well as it looks. It remains to be seen how big the differences between the powerful PS5 / Xbox Series consoles and the rather weaker Switch will be.

Whether the Sonic cycle will be broken in 2022 cannot yet be said. But we keep our fingers crossed for the hedgehog so that after 20 years he finally arrives at the finish line again. You can see here which games were shown at the fair and blew us away: The previous highlights of Gamescom 2022 – Hogwarts Legacy, Dune Awakening and more alluded to or analyzed.