The official Sonic Twitter account has announced a series of new free updates for Sonic Frontiers and among these is the announcement that new playable characters and stories are being added to the game. These are coming in update 3 with updates 1 and 2 adding new Cocos and modes.

New modes, new Koco, new…playable characters!? More Sonic Frontiers content coming your way next year! pic.twitter.com/MoZ8Gtj4Ro

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) November 30, 2022

Here are the further patch notes for the new update:

• Fixed a bug where the boss would sometimes disappear when retrying the boss battle on
  Kronos Island.
• Fixed a bug where the large Challenge on Chaos Island would display as incomplete on
  the map even after completing it.
• Fixed a bug on the Xbox Series S that prevented players from being able to select “60fps
  mode”.

While it’s not currently confirmed, the key visual in the post seems to indicate Knuckles, Amy, and Tails will be playable. If that really is the case, this will be the first time the three of them are playable in the Sonic game since Sonic Heroes in 2003, almost 20 years ago.

In general, there haven’t been multiple established playable characters in the mainline Sonic games since Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) which featured Shadow and Silver as playable. The closest we’ve had is Sonic Forces which has Classic Sonic and an avatar character. Many fans have wished for more characters to be playable in the new games and it seems Sonic Team is giving them what they want with Frontiers.

Sonic Frontiers is available for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.