Here’s a smidge of Sonic Frontiers’ open-world gameplay

[Extremely Shania Twain voice]: Let’s go girls.

Sega is betting big on Sonic Frontiers this year, and just ahead of a June blowout, the company shared a “small preview” of the game’s open-world action and exploration gameplay. Sega says to expect more info “all June long,” but for now, here’s roughly 20 seconds of honest-to-goodness (albeit chopped up and teaser-ified) gameplay footage.

Is this what you were expecting from Sonic Frontiers?

As someone who really only properly gets into Sonic’s side-scrolling adventures, the idea of a 3D Sonic game that takes cues from Breath of the Wild has been intriguing, admittedly — enough for me to pay attention to the news and teaser videos like this one.

That said, talk about an incredibly tall order for Sonic Team. Many of us know to go in with modest expectations, and I’m sticking to that strategy until proven otherwise.

Try as we might, there’s only so much to glean from this out-of-context Sonic Frontiers gameplay clip. A realistic-ish green landscape with floating rails dotting the horizon? Not exactly the strongest first impression. In the new footage, Sonic runs on a wheel to power up a radar (?), zips around robots in a combat encounter, and ultimately scales a big boy.

The promise of “open-zone freedom”

For me, whether this game succeeds or not will boil down to two general questions: is it inherently fun to traverse this world, and do I feel rewarded for exploring beyond the quickest path forward? If Sonic Frontiers can clear those bars, that’ll be a good starting point for keeping my interest in the run-up to reviews and the game’s launch this year.

Sega will be back with more Sonic Frontiers reveals starting tomorrow, June 1, on IGN.

Today’s teaser didn’t divulge any new release timing info, but Sonic Frontiers is confirmed for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.