The environments, the centerpiece of this trailer, do appear to have some amount of stylization, though what's been shown of them doesn't scream out that they're designed particularly for Sonic. The giant
Mechon robot creature could hint, at least, toward some interesting encounters, but, again, there really wasn't enough shown to judge that.
A giant sandbox sort of world could theoretically work for Sonic, but, also again, what was shown doesn't really indicate it's designed in a way one might expect; it doesn't depict what makes this world design and Sonic go together.
On that note, a key moment of the trailer will certainly look familiar to many here:
That's right, everyone, it's Caspar David Friedrich's iconic
Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer:
But, really, even as iconic as Friedrich's painting is, the idea that this moment in the trailer is meant to evoke that specifically seems dubious to me (I've seen a juxtaposition of the images, which I think was earnestly meant to indicate this is the inspiration, but the source now eludes me). The two pieces, though similar in composition, are disparate in mood and tone. On its own, and especially given the rest of the trailer, this key moment seems specifically reminiscent of another key image from elsewhere:
And it makes sense, as it seems to be trying to convey, broadly, the same sort of idea, that of a wide open world to explore. It could be happenstance that they landed on such a similar image -- it's not as if the sort of framing is entirely unheard of! -- but one can expect this was in the back of their minds, given how major it is in the video game world these days.
| I will say, Breath of the Wild's art more strongly evokes, I find, the same sort of mood found in Friedrich's piece. While I would like to assume this scene is specifically patterned after Nebelmeer, it seems more likely an homage to this art from the original Legend of Zelda: | |
Even this isn't to say there can't be direct Friedrich influence. But already I digress.
The interesting part of this scenario is that, despite what appears to be a callback to
Breath of the Wild,
Frontiers has been described as "Open-Zone," which mean's it's not a
Breath of the Hedgehog after all; it's something more akin to
Xenoblade: that's right, what we have here is
Xenohog Chronicles.
I feel uninformed. What's with all this "hire this man" jokes?
There are a plethora of people making Sonic fangames in an open-world style, and the joke comes from how often people comment on those fangame videos suggesting Sega should hire them and incorporate their ideas.
And not just Sonic, either. The phenomenon is prominent as well with fanmade Nintendo Unreal Engine tech demos, such as you might find on something like
this or
this, referenced, even, in the very first reply to this thread:
"[Company], hire this man!" gets thrown around as a joke regarding these efforts, often with no cohesive aesthetic style save for "stock asset," but sometimes it can be difficult to tell who's playing and who's being sincere. This is the curse of the internet.
