2022 is just getting started, and already there is a lot to look forward to for gaming fans. The list of anticipated video games coming in the following months is long, with popular titles such as Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring only a few weeks away. In addition, a number of big-name titles are expected to release over the next holiday season. One of these upcoming winter releases is Sonic Frontiers.
Announced last summer during a 30th-anniversary live stream, Sonic Frontiers is the next mainline installment in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Even though not much is known about the title, fans recently learned that the in-development game looks to take the franchise in a new direction, focusing on a more open-world design. Recently, Sega revealed some new details about the project.
In a tweet from January 10, the official Twitter account for Sonic the Hedgehog gave an update on the accessibility efforts for the upcoming Sonic Frontiers. According to the message, the localization teams have already started work on bringing voice acting and subtitles to a number of languages. As of now, the game has voice-acting and subtitle support for English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. In addition, six more languages feature only subtitle support, including Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.
It is worth noting that several of the subtitled languages are not supported on all platforms. The Korean and Chinese options can only be used on Xbox consoles and PC. While the reasons for these omissions are unknown, it is unfortunate for those hoping to play Sonic Frontiers in these languages. However, the game still is close to a year away from launch, meaning that things could change in the coming months of development.
Besides support for these various voice acting and subtitled languages, fans know several of the voice actors returning to Sonic Frontiers to play some of the classic characters in the franchise. During a YouTube livestream from a couple of weeks ago, Roger Craig Smith was revealed to be reprising his role as Sonic. In addition, Mike Pollock, the quintessential voice of the evil Dr. Eggman, was announced to be returning, along with Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Tails and Cindy Robinson as Amy Rose.
It is exciting to see Sega making the Sonic the Hedgehog series accessible to players of many languages. With this localization support, it will be interesting to see if this effort from Sonic Team gets more people interested in playing Sonic Frontiers.
Sonic Frontiers is scheduled to release in holiday 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
