Sonic Forces Is Making An Interesting Change To Formula

We've come to expect certain things from Sonic the Hedgehog games, like being able to pick rings up after we lose them, and, at the very least, making sure we have at least one so we can avoid certain death. But with the upcoming Sonic Forces, that may not be so easy.

That's because when you get hit and lose rings in the game, you won't be able to get them back. You can still get new rings, but the challenge will definitely be upped because of this mechanic.

To get the lowdown on why this is happening in the game, Game Informer spoke with producer Shun Nakamurac., who explained the thought behind the new process. Don't get too angry, there's reasoning here.

"In Sonic Forces, Sonic loses his rings when hit like always, but he doesn't have the ability to regain them. This is a huge departure from the series' history and seems to go against the notion of classic Sonic. Why make this change?

We realize Sonic Mania came out and had classic Sonic portrayed in the classic world, with the classic gameplay of when you get hit, you lose all your rings and you have the chance to gather them back up and continue running. That was made by a different team with a different design aesthetic of recreating a classic Sonic title. What my team wanted to do with Sonic Forces is really expand on the game design and make something different and new for the Sonic Forces world, which is more modern. When we were designing the game, we wanted to make sure it was balanced properly, so it's not too easy, but also not too challenging.

Since presenting it at E3, we've heard a lot of people ask what you have, and it's something the team feels really strongly about. They do like the design of Sonic Forces as we have presented it, but we're also listening to a lot of the people saying they want that classic gameplay element back. We believe what we made [is a good balance] and will be a great experience for people — but we also are hearing that people are wanting something that we haven't provided to them. I'm still sitting with the team digesting it and figuring out what to do. It's an unresolved topic even amongst the team.

With Sonic Mania proving so successful, how do you differentiate the classic Sonic gameplay in Sonic Forces from the retro style found in Sonic Mania?

It's different teams creating Mania and Forces, but we were watching some builds come in for Mania and were like, "Wow! That's a really great game." It hits that classic Genesis/Mega Drive era of gameplay right on the head. It's solid. When we were looking at what was being done in Sonic Mania, we were like, "There's a couple of ideas in here that are really good." But from a classic standpoint, what we're doing is looking back to Sonic Generations and saying, "Look, we need this classic Sonic gameplay and people really liked Sonic Generations, so let's bring that into Sonic Forces." [We also asked], "How can we expand on that Sonic Generations classic style gameplay and make it be something more than Sonic Generations was?" There is a little bit of a design difference and design philosophy in the base content that each team was referencing [for Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces]."

Sonic Forces releases on November 7th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.