

It’s an unresolved topic even amongst the team. I’m still sitting with the team digesting it and figuring out what to do.

We believe what we made and will be a great experience for people - but we also are hearing that people are wanting something that we haven’t provided to them. They do like the design of Sonic Forces as we have presented it, but we’re also listening to a lot of the people saying they want that classic gameplay element back. Since presenting it at E3, we’ve heard a lot of people ask what you have, and it’s something the team feels really strongly about. When we were designing the game, we wanted to make sure it was balanced properly, so it’s not too easy, but also not too challenging. What my team wanted to do with Sonic Forces is really expand on the game design and make something different and new for the Sonic Forces world, which is more modern.

That was made by a different team with a different design aesthetic of recreating a classic Sonic title. We realize Sonic Mania came out and had classic Sonic portrayed in the classic world, with the classic gameplay of when you get hit, you lose all your rings and you have the chance to gather them back up and continue running. This is a huge departure from the series' history and seems to go against the notion of classic Sonic. In Sonic Forces, Sonic loses his rings when hit like always, but he doesn't have the ability to regain them. To discover more about the upcoming game, we spoke with producer Shun Nakamura, asking him everything from why you can’t recover rings to how this darker Sonic world came to be. While this is a modern Sonic game, it also has features some levels reminiscent of the classics, such as a casino stage and Green Hill, though the latter isn’t as lush as it used to be thanks to Eggman’s destruction. Wispons can be used to uncover secrets as well as different routes, and you'll need to equip specific ones to reach certain areas. One Wispon can transform into a powerful drill, while another turns into a whip. With these custom characters, players can equip gadgets called Wispons that grant your character different abilities. This entry in the long-running Sonic universe allows you to create your own avatar and fight alongside Sonic to save the world from Dr. Sonic Forces launches in less than a month.
