Leftover files from Sonic Frontiers have been discovered in Sonic Origins, confirming the existence of cyberspace levels in the former. Both games appear to be running on the same engine i.e. Hedgehog Engine 2, and Sonic Frontiers was likely used to set the foundation for development on Sonic Origins.
Given its smaller scope, development on Sonic Origins was completed first, while work on Sonic Frontiers is still underway. Though, in a rather expected turn of events, Twitter user Arsenic was able to get a hold of several strings of text from from the executable file for Sonic Origins.
The aforementioned text strings belong to Sonic Frontiers, and they seem to confirm the existence of features that have yet to be announced. Based on the uncovered text, the game will feature a fishing mini-game. The files also mention Tails and Amy, but it’s unclear whether they’re regular NPCs or playable characters. The name of an unknown NPC called Kodama is also present among the strings of text.
Strangely enough, shaders from Sonic Frontiers also somehow made their way into the release build of Sonic Origins. Among the Pipeline State Object (PSO) files listed are those meant for assets associated with cyberspace environments, hinting at the existence of cyberspace levels in Sonic Frontiers. A list of some of the aforementioned shader files can be seen in the screenshot below.
Sonic Frontiers is a brand new 3D platformer featuring the blue hedgehog. The game is developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega. After Sonic, Miles “Tails” Prower, and Amy Rose split upon falling through a wormhole, the player takes on the role of Sonic the Hedgehog and explores the enigmatic Starfall Islands in order to gather the Chaos Emeralds.
Sonic Frontiers will have players solve puzzles to acquire new items and battle robot enemies, while also platforming through classic Sonic levels featuring grind rails at blazing speeds. The game is scheduled for release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in late 2022.
