Sega Explains What Sonic Frontiers’ 'Open Zone' Structure Actually Means

ign.com:

Sonic Frontiers will be the first new 3D Sonic title since 2017’s Sonic Forces. Unlike previous level-based endeavors, however, Sonic Frontiers will be the series’ first title to boast a vast and freely explorable world, which Sega refers to as 'Open Zone'.

So why is it an Open Zone, as opposed to an open world? Director Morio Kishimoto told IGN all about it. Kishimoto refers to Open Zone as “Sonic Frontiers’ secret weapon”:

“Level-based platformers often have a world map. Our Open Zone is a world map, only we’ve made it entirely playable,” Kishimoto stated.

“A playable world map that includes stage-like elements is something that hasn’t really been done before, so we had to come up with a new name. What is often defined as a World in other level-based platformers is called a Zone in Sonic games, so we took that and combined it with Open, which refers to a freely explorable field. So that’s what Open Zone stands for.”

Kishimoto sees the Open Zone as an evolution of the traditional world map – of course, one that has been tailored to match Sonic’s high-speed gameplay.

“Super Mario Bros. 3 was released in Japan in 1988. I believe this was the first game to introduce a world map. The system has been used by countless platformers since, even to this day. A true evolution of this structure is what we see as the essence of Sonic Frontiers’ field. We wanted to provide a next-gen level-based platforming experience. But how do we evolve a level-based platformer like Sonic into this new Open Zone? That’s what Sonic Frontiers is all about,” said Kishimoto.

Usually, a level-based platformer’s world map is an area from which the player departs to various stages. However, going from Kishimoto’s explanation, Sonic Frontiers’ Open Zone is