Sonic Team clarifies what “Open Zone” means for ‘Sonic Frontiers’
nme.comSonic Team has been insistent on referring to its upcoming Sonic Frontiers as being “Open Zone” as opposed to open-world, and now director Morio Kishimoto has specifically clarified the differences between the two terms.“Level-based platformers often have a world map.
Our Open Zone is a world map, only we’ve made it entirely playable,” Kishimoto stated in an interview with IGN. “A playable world map that includes stage-like elements is something that hasn’t really been done before, so we had to come up with a new name.”Kishimoto went on to explain how Sonic Team landed on the phrase Open Zone: “What is often defined as a World in other level-based platformers is called a Zone in Sonic games, so we took that and combined it with Open, which refers to a freely explorable field.
So that’s what Open Zone stands for.”Kishomoto added that the aim of Sonic Frontiers is to combine this Open Zone approach with “a next-gen level-based platforming experience,” which he says is “what Sonic Frontiers is all about”.Since the start of this month, Sonic fans have been treated to a bevy of Sonic Frontiers updates, with the game having IGN First coverage slated for the entire month.
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