Early tastes of Sonic Frontiers indicated an open-world enactment crippled that was acold disconnected from a publishable state. But if a seemingly unintentional uncover from Sega is to beryllium believed, it’s owed retired imminently: November 8, 2022, smack successful the mediate of the busiest merchandise cadence connected the horizon.

Sonic Frontiers, first announced during the 2021 Game Awards, is the bluish hedgehog’s archetypal foray into an open-world format. Lonely, expansive fields of grass. Derelict, past ruins. Somber music. Frontiers came crossed arsenic Sonic designed by mode of a Breath of the Wild checklist. Initially fixed a precocious 2022 merchandise date, previews this summer lambasted however it did not consciousness similar a Sonic crippled (in different words, nary loop-de-loops). The consensus, much oregon less, was basically: This happening needs a spot much clip successful the oven. It felt empty, and failed to seizure the bravado that defined its predecessors, and made (some of) them specified a blast to play.

Read More: Sonic Frontiers Dev Says Negative Reactions Are Because People ‘Don’t Understand’ It

More clip successful the oven definite seems to beryllium the past happening Sonic Frontiers is gonna get. The crippled is acceptable to beryllium 1 of the headliners for today’s Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase, but up of the event, Sega seems to person inadvertently published a Japanese TV spot pegging a November 8, 2022, merchandise day for Sonic Frontiers. As antecedently confirmed, it’ll travel retired connected PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC.

The advertisement itself was rapidly acceptable to private, but not earlier respective unaffiliated accounts grabbed and reuploaded it. It’s brief—just 30 seconds long—but does look much “like a Sonic game” than erstwhile footage, showing Sonic tearing done earthy environments: a forest, a mechanized bridge, the walls of a canyon. At the extremity of the clip, it culminates with the crunchy guitar truthful commonly associated with the series, arsenic Sonic ascends a cliff and gazes astatine a upland range. (Those BotW comparisons were so apt.)

A typical for Sega did not respond to a petition for remark successful clip for publication.

If the leak turns retired to beryllium true, Sonic Frontiers is landing during the busiest merchandise agelong of the year. About a week prior, WB Games volition merchandise Gotham Knights, an open-world co-op enactment crippled based connected DC antiheroes. That’s followed instantly by a caller Call of Duty game. Sonic Frontiers itself volition stock a merchandise day with Skull and Bones, the repeatedly delayed Ubisoft pirate crippled (née an Assassin’s Creed spinoff), which comes retired conscionable 1 time earlier Sony publishes the astir anticipated crippled of the year: God of War Ragnarök. And then, of course, 10 days aboriginal sees the all-but-guaranteed income juggernaut of the season: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Earlier this summer, IGN ran a bid of videos exploring much of Sonic Frontiers, including however combat works and what the unfastened satellite really plays like. The bid did not assistance the game’s image. Following a question of instrumentality backlash—including immoderate calls for Sega to hold the game—Sega’s Takashi Iizuka, who runs Sonic Team, addressed the criticism.

“It’s not truly that surprising,” Iizuka told VGC successful an interview. “We bash recognize everyone is conscionable benignant of reacting to the videos that they saw, and due to the fact that they don’t recognize what this caller gameplay is, they’re benignant of comparing it to different games that they already know.”