Sega's upcoming Sonic Frontiers is set to give the Sonic franchise a new look, but many fans are wondering if it's open world.

Sonic Frontiers is an upcoming platform game set in the Sonic universe. The game is being developed by Team Sonic, published by Sega, and is currently set for a release later this year. The design for Sonic Frontiers is one that's been met with a lot of discussion from Sonic fans, given that it seems to branch away from the types of gameplay seen in more recent or traditional Sonic entries.

The game presents more realistic environments for players to traverse, including sweeping fields and impressive ruins. But aside from the game's announcement trailer back in December 2021, fans have yet to see much else from the upcoming game. The mystique has led many fans to wonder if Sonic Frontiers is going to be a fully open world game.

Will Sonic Frontiers be Open World?

It seems Sonic Frontiers will not be open world in the traditional sense, with Sega instead referring to it as an "Open Zone."

In an interview with IGN, Director Morio Kishimoto further expanded on the term, saying, "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."

Kishimoto said that the game contains “a playable world map that includes stage-like elements."

So, from Kishimoto's explanation, it seems that the player will be able to explore a particular environment, where levels exists within it. While perhaps not open world in the traditional sense, it seems players will still be met with plenty of exploration.