Sonic Team studio head Takashi Iizuka said on Video Game Chronicles that its upcoming game Sonic Frontiers will not be delayed and be released on schedule for 2022.

Turns out the #DelaySonicFrontiers was trending on Twitter earlier this month after fans expressed disappointment over the new footage and videos of the game in action. Here’s what Iizuka has to say:

“It’s not really that surprising. We do realise everyone is just kind of reacting to the videos that they saw, and because they don’t understand what this new gameplay is they’re kind of comparing it to other games that they already know.

So we do see a lot of people saying, ‘oh, it’s kind of like this, it’s kind of like that, but it’s not like this, it’s not like that’. And really, the team is going out and creating this new game format for Sonic, and we’re calling it an ‘open zone’ format. And this new game system itself is something that doesn’t really exist in any other comparable titles, so we really hope that from here until launch we can really explain what open zone gameplay is.

If people come to Gamescom or Tokyo Game Show, [they can] get that hands-on experience to play the game and understand what the game is. Because right now we’re just kind of watching videos of people reacting to what they believe the game to be.”

There’s a lot to unpack here:

• If you’re that confident about your game, just release a demo of the game to get real public feedback.
• I’m not sure what this “new format” is, but the old ways of showing people theh game other people are playing in direct feeds seem to work just great for other games.

In any case, the new gameplay via Gematsu seems to show off better things than what the IGN early previews led many fans to believe. Sonic Frontiers will be out in Holiday 2022 for PC, Xbox Series, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.