Summary
The director ofSonic Frontiers, Morio Kishimoto, views the game’s active community and mods as a “rival” for the developers to surpass. The modding community for the game has been incredibly dedicated ever since its original 2022 release, frommods that improve uponFrontiers' gameplay, to mods that gave Sonic new costumes and outfits to wear. Some of these mods have gotten pretty popular, and many people have been showcasing them on social media and YouTube, some of which managed to get the attention of the developers themselves.
Sonic Frontiers' director, Morio Kishimoto, has been pretty open about the game’s development and reception, both before and after its launch. This includes taking feedback aboutFrontiersitself, adding new content based on fan demand for the subsequent updates that would be released throughout 2023. This culminated inthe “Final Horizon” update ofSonic Frontiers, which added three additional playable characters, Amy, Tails, and Knuckles, who were all highly requested playable additions to the game. These additions were all, in some shape or form, inspired by the modding community, and Kishimoto’s desire to surpass fan expectations.
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In an interview with Famitsutranslated by My Nintendo News, Kishimoto was asked about the third update toFrontiers, along with what was included in The Final Horizon. He stated that the update was built as a way for the developers to show their gratitude to those who bought the original game, but realized they should make the update comparable to the full version of the game, viewing it as a “rival” in a way. He then brought up howSonic Frontiers' modding community was also flourishing in the West, which he also viewed as a rival.
The “MOD” culture that is flourishing overseas was also a rival. There are some very skilled users overseas, and what we were planning to make as fan service turned out to be “It’s already working.” …If the customers come that far, we’re going to go even further beyond their expectations and betray their expectations. As a result, we said, “Isn’t the full version our competitor?” That’s what we decided to do. - Morio Kishimoto (roughly translated)
Kishimoto complimented the skills of the modders, noting how they were creating things that the development team were also looking to include as pieces of fan service. When Famitsu asked what kind of mods he saw, Kishimoto answered thatmodders were adding characters toSonic Frontierswho weren’t playable in the game. He also was amused about how the community was adding moves that the team were already going to implement, like the Spin Dash that was introduced in the “Birthday Bash” update. As such, Kishimoto wanted to go beyond those expectations as well.
Sonic Frontiers' reception a year laterhas seen it selling over 3.5 million copies since its 2022 launch, along with the updates bringing in plenty of highly requested features based on fan feedback. When Kishimoto was asked about how this affected the game’s update, he noted that there was feedback online about people finding the difficulty quite punishing, especially for newcomers. He came to the conclusion that they should have lowered the update’s difficulty for it to be welcoming for newcomers as well.
Sonic Frontiers
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