And it’s free!

UPDATE (12/29/2022): this guide has been updated to make sure HMM runs! I also have a video. I guess many of the people who have tried adding mods to Sonic Frontiers on Deck have had trouble. And up until this point I’ve had no idea how to help troubleshoot the various issues they’ve encountered. Fortunately SolarNyan came to the rescue with an updated guide. I’ll explain their steps here with pictures and videos.

Sonic Adventure 2 – the cult classic. Fans have gotten together to make the game moddable. From an extended Chao World, to the ability to play as Super Sonic or Super Shadow, to revamped cutscenes, it’s amazing to see what the modding community has been able to accomplish to make a great game even greater. But for today’s guide, we’ll be focusing on giving the game a modern HD look. Not only are the character models replaced with more modern-looking ones, but the mod also contains a sound redesign.

Some folks wanted a video tutorial going over how to get Hedge Mod Manager running on Deck, so here you go. Text version: Get STL: git clone https://github.com/sonic2kk/steamtinkerlaunch.git cd steamtinkerlaunch ./steamtinkerlaunch (updates to latest git and installs all dependencies needed) ./steamtinkerlaunch compat add (adds STL to Steam) Restart Steam and force Frontiers to use STL. Run the game Go to GLOBAL, configure HMM to use nightly build. Close STL and force Frontiers to use GE-Proton7-41 (or an older build if it doesn’t work for some reason) .

UPDATE (12/27/2022): updated Steam Deck guide is available! UPDATE (12/5/2022): video guide is up if you need it! Sonic Frontiers may have an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam, but there are quite a few things we can do to make the gameplay experience even better. Such as: disable letterboxing during cutscenes unlocking framerate during cutscenes 4K video playback skipping intro video decreasing graphics quality for getting smoother gameplay on NVIDIA (or other low-end hardware including the Steam Deck) making speed upgrades faster reducing hitstop for more fluent gameplay improved physics for Cyber Space levels removing the cutscene when unlocking a portion of the map increased difficulty changing how Sonic looks and plenty of other enhancements With all these mods you could practically get a fresh new session in after beating the game.

Worried about the “Unsupported” mark on the Steam store page for Sonic Frontiers? Bah, that’s garbage. It runs out of the box with Proton 7.0-4 and GE-Proton. Though it’s a somewhat barebones PC port, we have a few options at our disposal for the best optimized settings. I’ve got some gameplay footage running anywhere between 40-60 FPS, but there are spoilers there, so watch out for that. After putting several hours into the game today on Deck, I’ve come across a few tweaks that I think you might like.

It’s been a while since we had a 3D Sonic game. The last one we had was Sonic Forces back in 2017, which had been met with lukewarm reception. Sonic’s reputation in the 3D realm has been scarred. He’s turned into a werehog. His arch rival was given a gun. His modern self has met his 90s counterpart. And don’t even get me started with Sonic ‘06. I think Sega tried a little too hard to cater to fan service – that or they just shipped their products to the shelves way too quickly – and for the most part, they failed hard.