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Sega's Creative Officer on where Sonic Frontiers falls in the franchise's timeline

In a recent interview, Sega's Takashi Izuka shared more details on where Sonic Frontiers falls in the franchise's overall narrative.

TJ Denzer

June 27, 2022 8:45 AM

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Sonic Frontiers is an interesting new step for the Sonic franchise, though it’s a little difficult to tell where it fits into the Sonic universe at large based on what we’ve seen. There hasn’t been any sign of Tails, Knuckles, or other characters just yet, which begged the question of if this game was set before or after Sonic had met them. Sega Creative Officer Takashi Izuka thankfully shined some light on the matter.

We had a chance to sit down with Izuka and ask various questions about Sonic Frontiers in a recent video interview posted on our GamerHubTV YouTube channel. When asked about the timeline of Sonic Frontiers, Izuka answered that Frontiers is indeed set after every other game in the franchise so far.

“A lot of people get confused with the timeline and they’re always asking ‘where in the timeline is it?’,” Izuka explained. “For the team, the release of the title kind of dictates the timeline, so as future games get released, that’s the current timeline. We’re always kind of in the now as the games come out… So yes, he’s met Tails, all the characters he’s met in the past, he has that knowledge as we continue moving forward with video games.”

It's interesting to know that Sonic Frontiers will be taking place after everything that’s happened in the Sonic canon so far, but it also begs the question of where the other characters are at this point. Sega may be holding those reveals back for future trailers and announcements as we get closer to the game’s release date this holiday season. That said, it will be interesting to see where we end up seeing characters like Tails, Knuckles, and even Eggman show up down the line.

In addition to confirming Sonic Frontier’s place in the Sonic franchise timeline, Izuka also shared details on the game’s open world elements, or “open zone” as he described it. Stay tuned for more details and news as we get closer to the game’s launch later this year.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.