Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Sonic Frontiers release date confirmed for November 2022

By
Summer Gaming Marathon Feature Image
Summer Gaming Marathon
This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

Sega announced that Sonic Frontiers will be making its way to consoles and PC on November 8. Sega revealed the release date at Gamescom Opening Night Live on Tuesday alongside a new cinematic trailer for the game.

Sonic Frontiers – arriving November 8, 2022! pic.twitter.com/jjaMDOSTdy

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) August 23, 2022

The release date was previously leaked in a Japanese trailer after another leak suggested that it could launch on November 15. Now, Sega has confirmed that the November 8 release date for Sonic Frontiers as the real one. That puts Sonic Frontiers in direct competition with God of War: Ragnarok, which comes out the next day.

Recommended Videos

The trailer opens with Sonic speeding past a little Koco to get to the Cyberspace gate and get past it against the wishes of Sage, who warns him that his actions are detrimental to the strange, brave new world he finds himself in and tells him to leave. When he gets out of Cyberspace, he sees a petrified Amy Rose trapped in a cage set up by the cybernetic robots, and his hand is weighed down by a new cybernetic power as he fights the robots and Sage.

Related: 
Best new movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Max (HBO), and more

There was speculation over whether Sonic Frontiers would even be released this year. It was previously scheduled to launch in 2021 as part of the celebration for Sonic’s 30th anniversary, but Sega delayed it to make sure it lived up to expectations. Then when the game’s first gameplay footage was released on IGN First in June, fans deemed the game unfinished because of problems with that build and speculated that it could be delayed. That ended up not being the case.

In Sonic Frontiers, the famous blue blur becomes stranded in a mysterious new land called Starfall Islands after getting separated from his friends while flying through a wormhole. As he traverses through the new open-world dimension, he gains mystical cybernetic powers like the Cyloop. Sonic also has new combat abilities that give him an advantage over the glyphic enemies residing on the island and the new gigantic robots Dr. Eggman has built to take over the world. He also meets some new characters, like the Kocos and Sage, a mysterious little girl who warns Sonic to leave Starfall Islands.

Sonic Frontiers will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch on November 8.

Cristina Alexander
Cristina Alexander
Gaming/Mobile Writer
Cristina Alexander is a gaming and mobile writer at Digital Trends. She blends fair coverage of games industry topics that…
Topics

Editors’ Recommendations

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 seems like it will be well worth the wait
Key art for Stalker 2. A character in a lit-up gas mask and a gun on their back.

Rumblings about a sequel to the cult classic S.T.A.L.K.E.R, an atmospheric, yet janky supernatural shooter set within the radioactive zone around Chornobyl, have been around since 2010. The current version of the sequel from GSC Game World has been discussed since 2020. It was initially going to launch as early as April 2022, but due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its development has been rife with delays, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl was pushed back again and again, all the way until this September.

With only a few months to go until launch, GSC Game World finally had the game playable at Summer Game Fest this year. I went hands-on with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, and it's shaping up to be a brutal survival shooter that will be well worth the wait.

Read more
Phantom Blade Zero delivers the action I wanted from Stellar Blade
The main character in Phantom Blade Zero

I liked Stellar Blade for the PlayStation 5 when it launched in April, but I'll admit its gameplay was a bit slower than I had hoped. Shift Up's game leaned more into its Dark Souls influence rather than Nier: Automata's roots during combat. I've been looking for a new character-action game that makes me feel powerful with flashy animations, big combos, and a fast pace. After going hands-on with a demo of Phantom Blade Zero at Summer Game Fest, I think it's the game I was looking for all along.

I was actually a bit skeptical heading into my appointment for Phantom Blade Zero. Its reveal trailers were so flashy that I had my doubts that they were showing actual gameplay. While the camera work in those trailers is definitely a bit different than what's in-game, Phantom Blade Zero's fights are just as exhilarating to play as they are to watch. If you're attending any of the shows where a demo for it will be available this year, you have to give it a shot.

Read more
Silent Hill creator’s new game Slitterhead prioritizes action over scares
One of the rarity characters in Bokeh Game Studio's Slitterhead.

Slitterhead was the weirdest game I stumbled onto at Summer Game Fest this year. Tucked away in a small cabana at the back of the event, it was a game few people attending even seemed to know was there. I felt compelled to check it out before the event ended, as if I were possessed. I managed to get an on-the-fly appointment to see it on the last day of Summer Game Fest, eager to dissect what I saw in its action-focused gameplay trailer. That decision would bring me face-to-face with Keiichiro Toyama, who helped create iconic franchises like Silent Hill, Siren, and Gravity Rush, and has now moved on to make Slitterhead at Bokeh Game Studio.

We're in a survival-horror renaissance now thanks to Capcom's Resident Evil remakes and standout indies like Crow Country, but Toyama tells Digital Trends he's now leaning into making a full-on action horror game. He believes that's what players today prefer, and Slitterhead is a result of that. With its focus on combat, a parry deflection mechanic, and a possession system that lets players move between bodies during battle, it felt like I had stumbled upon a creepy hidden gem at Summer Game Fest.
A Siren spiritual successor
Although Toyama is best known for creating the first Silent Hill, Slitterhead has more in common with the second horror franchise he worked on: Siren. That series was a creepy survival horror game where players could "sightjack" NPCs to learn what they can see and hear. That gameplay concept, as well as the idea of telling another ensemble story with a lot of characters, is something Toyama and other returning developers from Siren want to explore more with Slitterhead.

Read more