Sonic Forces Shows Off Tag Team Gameplay In Fast And Furious New Footage

We've known for a while now that Sonic Forces will let players blast through 3D stages as Modern Sonic, 2D stages as Classic Sonic, or swing a grappling hook as your own custom character, but it turns out there's also a fourth style of gameplay. As revealed in a new gameplay snippet, Sonic Forces will also have Tag stages, which let Sonic and your custom character combine forces. Here's how Sega describes the tag team setup:

"In Tag stages, Modern Sonic and the custom Hero Character team up to utilize Sonic's boost abilities and homing attack along with the Hero Character's Wispon abilities and grappling hook action to defeat the enemies. The video also reveals a new Wispon, the Cube Wispon, which allows the Hero Character to freeze enemies in block-like prisons and ultimately pulverize them into oblivion."

Looks like an interesting mechanic, although it should be noted that Sonic Forces is strictly a single-player adventure – you'll control both characters in the Tag stages. Basically, it's just a way to combine Sonic's speedy abilities with the grappling powers of your custom character. You can check out more off-screen footage of a Tag stage in action below, courtesy of the Nintendo fanatics at GameXplain.

In other Sonic Forces news, the game has been given a Japanese release date of November 9. The game still has a generic "holiday" release date in America, but Sonic games typically launch at more-or-less the same time in Japan and North America as they don't require a lot of localization. In fact, they often hit America first, so we may not have long to wait.

Sonic Forces is scheduled to hit PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.