We know this is something that you’ve been wondering about for some time, it’s fairly big news to be fair. It has been confirmed by a Sega director that the recent Sonic Frontiers is the start of the “third generation” of Sonic. Morio Kishimoto revealed the bombshell today after serious questions were being asked about the timeline of this new Sonic game.

It makes sense that this would be a brand-new generation for the series though, the older game design of the late 2000s and 2010s was finally ditched for this latest game, and a new open-world concept was adopted so the franchise could head in a new direction. Kishimoto updated us on the details during his excitement about Sonic Frontiers making it to the final five of the Players Voice category at this year’s The Game Awards. The game eventually lost to Genshin Impact in a closely fought battle for the top prize though.

While celebrating the success though, the Sega director said that the “third generation is off to a good start,” and that the recognition will be a “big driving force” for the next game to flourish. Kishimoto explained, “We made it into the top five of TGA Players’ Voice! This is all thanks to your support.” It’s good to hear that he’s happy because the game actually had a mixed response upon its release, but this could be a good thing for the sequel, whenever that will be revealed. Regarding a sequel though, Kishimoto said, “We promise you an experience of greater excitement and surprise.”

This is the first time that Sonic Frontiers has been referred to as the start of a new generation of the spiky blue hedgehog. We can safely assume that the first generation began with Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and up to Sonic Adventure in 1999. This is where we saw the most significant changes in concept and gameplay. That would mean the second generation would be everything up until Sonic Forces in 2017, as there wasn’t a noticeable change in the series until Frontiers was released earlier this year, which incorporated a fancy new open-world formula.

Sonic Frontiers did represent a huge leap forward for Sega, we already know that the team spent five years working on just the first main boss, which only confirms the time and effort they put into this new generation. However, Kishimoto also explained that the second part of the game was rushed, which was one of the reasons the reviews for the game turned out to be fairly mixed. There’s a moral to this story, and that’s to take your time and don’t rush things.

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