Sonic Forces Thread

There's also PlayStation Experience in December, though really I doubt that they're going to be really revealing anything new for this game while they're trying to first sell Sonic Mania to people.

 

I'm with the "would like to know more about Project 2017" camp on this one. I'd love to see something beyond an uninformative CG teaser that, frankly, didn't feel worth the buildup.

Not to sound ungrateful, of course; I'm still massively looking forward to Sonic Mania (and that Collector's Edition looks great). But I wish its existence (as fantastic as it is) wouldn't be used as a reason to further delay showing off the next 3D Sonic game some of us are still curious about.

 

Is there any interviews about Project Sonic 2017? Or is it still early for that?

 

Yeah Overlord (and also TimmiT) are correct here. The spotlight and hype machine is laser focused on Mania and it will likely be that way until the game is released. They just wanted to alert us to the game's existence so we knew Sonic Team were at least working on something whilst strongly pushing Mania which I'd expect they'll focus on all the way until its Spring release. There'll be a storm of news on Mania as we edge closer to its release and I expect them to remain silent regarding Project Sonic to maintain the focus on Mania. It doesn't make sense to push Project Sonic until Mania is released meaning I'd anticipate news around Summer 2017 probably at that year's E3 show.

Sega will shift gears to Project Sonic once Mania is out. It's going to be a waiting game until then.

I do agree but it's not just Mania preventing news from coming - the game's release date is Holiday 2017. That date is really far out in to the distant future. A lifetime in the games industry. They're just not going to push something that far out until we get closer to release.

Still too early I believe. There's nothing out there as of yet to the best of my knowledge.

 

I'm sure this is the rationale they were operating under, but did it actually succeed? Because three years removed from Lost World, if Project 2017 isn't far enough along to even show a vertical slice in a trailer, that makes me worry Sonic Team has learned nothing about how to function within their dev time, despite SoJ addressing it and claiming that would change. And if that's NOT the case, then all they did was have a CGI trailer that they just left out there in a vacuum with nothing concrete to get excited about, and raising more questions and trepidation than hype.

Showing the trailer wouldn't have been an issue if they had gone the Generations route and revealed gameplay footage not long afterwards. Generations handled the hype machine very well (except allowing the demo to reveal the entire level line-up). But showing it off just to let it be the only representation for what is likely to be at least half a year? If that's the case, it may have been better to hold it off until they COULD show gameplay along with the CGI. And that's coming from a guy who was chomping at the bit to see anything representing the game. I'm just trying to wrap my head around what kind of marketing sense this made.

 

Probably worth pointing out: it being three years since Lost World doesn't mean this game has actually been in development for three years. It's certainly possible, but at the same time there's also the possibility that a lot of that time was spent experimenting or work on a game that was eventually cancelled. Or they could have decided to scrap what they had in favour of a better engine, or had to revise the game's design. A lot can happen in game development.

There's also that the game could be presentable, but SEGA first wants to get people to buy Mania before they advertise Project 2017. Point is: there are a whole lot of reasons why they're not currently showing the game, and they're not necessarily bad.

 

I didn't mean to insinuate that the reason they haven't shown it yet is inherently bad. It's just a bit weird. Or rather, it's common in the industry, just not generally in how Sonic Team has marketed Sonic in the past. And like I said before, I understand that they're letting Mania get the hype for the time-being, and that's likely a good thing. But that leaves Project 2017 in a weird place of being 'out there' but just kind of left to fade out for a prolonged period of time until they reveal gameplay. Just a strange strategy of capitalizing on marketing buzz is all.

 

It's not exactly uncommon though. A lot of games get revealed at E3 with just a gameplay teaser or some CG, and then they're no longer shown until the next year, if not longer.

 

It's common practice to throw out a non-gameplay trailer to start the marketing hype but you'd think they would have something to show. At least some screenshots or a quip of gameplay. My understanding is that they're well into the planning stages for the next title right after they release a mainline title. Though TimmiT is right in that there could be a lot of experimentation or revisions behind the scenes. Sega's recent announcement about shooting for quality might be behind what is currently a late showing for a mainline Sonic.

I just find it strange they're entirely banking on Mania when they didn't have any confidence in classic Sonic before Generations hit. Honestly it's rather humbling that a lot of people in all sorts of places are buzzing over Mania hype and completely glossing over 2017. Though to be fair they've given us no reason to really care one way or another about it yet.

 

To be fair, though, I don't think most of those announcements necessarily inspire the sort of uncertainty Sonic games currently do. This is a franchise that's infamous for the inconsistency of its games, and having any reassurance that Project Sonic 2017 will be another step in the right direction would be more than welcome.

 

On top of what everyone else has said:

Not showing something != not having something to show. For all we know the game could be finished and in final testing (unlikely, of course, but run with it) - but given the option, they want people to buy Sonic Mania AND Project Sonic 2017. Marketing them both side-by-side is likely to have a negative effect, so they're concentrating on Mania first.

Not only that, but if they start showing gameplay now, they have to keep showing gameplay up until its release. And given that release is more than a year away, people are going to start getting bored of seeing it and basically forget about it. That's no good. Their marketing campaign will start in the months before release, probably in June-ish. This teaser was just to show that Mania isn't the only Sonic game coming out next year.

 

My theory is that the game was originally going to be ready for this year. The reason I think this is that the social media teaser campaign began at the start of the year (or earlier if you count the hint they dropped at halloween).
It seems odd they would be teasing a game that was planned for Christmas 2017.

Plus the game is supposed to be an anniversary title (I think) so again it seems odd for it to be released after 2016.

I think something happened and they had to push the game back.

I also think the teaser campaign forced them to show a trailer. If it hadn't been for the campaign, they could have probably got away with just focusing on Mania.

 

I too think they probably wouldn't have gotten away with just doing the most well received Sonic game reveal in a very long time either. :v:

 

We can speculate forever about what Sega has completed so far, or not, or their intention... But regardless, I don't think it's a bad decision to show off Sonic 2017, and then leave a prolonged silence before anything further materializes. I've seen this strategy countless times with movies. In particular, this strategy was very successful with the movie Cloverfield.

It works like this: you show a tiny little tidbit of media which is currently in development, and make sure to leave a positive impression so people are curious and hungry, without providing enough for any meaningful criticism. This plants a seed in people's brain. Then there is a lengthy pause in which nothing further is revealed, at first the target audience feels starved for more information, then the media slowly fades from their attention. Then when the media is eventually revealed again in greater detail, a positive association is created between the new material and the old memory. This creates a greater amount of anticipation and hype for the product because the positive memory (which lacked enough information for criticism) and lack of information is interpreted as a desire for the product itself, and now the media can use this as a launching pad. It's a way to create a positive memory and desire for a product then otherwise would have been achieved if a lot was revealed at once and a released proceeded in short order. It's basically a trick.

 

I would think most people who follow this series should know better than to get their hopes up too high without knowing anything. :v:

 

That logic really should be applied to all games, not just this one.

 

you could try to do that with any product, but it will be harder to fool people that have a preconceived notion in the first place, that's what makes the initial experience/seed memorable. So the audience has to have either no expectations or expect the possibility of radical change.