Square Enix has been one of the biggest supporters of the Nintendo Switch since its launch in 2017. They’re released many big titles for it both in terms of exclusives and multi-platform titles. The biggest one though was Octopath Traveler by their new in-house team Acquire, who also did Bravely Default. The game sold over 1.5 million units and was praised as one of the best RPGs out there.
And now, they’re making a prequel to the game for smartphones in Octopath Traveler: Champions Of The Continent. And in an interview with Famitsu, team members Tomoya Asano and Yuki Yokoyama talked about how the game idea came to be and why it’s coming to smartphones:
When we announced Octopath Traveler and were advertising it, we heard a lot of people say that the game “looked fun,” but they “didn’t have a Switch.” So, we wondered: “If we developed an Octopath game for smartphones, would more people be able to play it?” That was our impetus.
As for how it’ll be different from the original game on Switch, they noted:
The biggest thing would probably be how the characters themselves move. In Octopath, the player could enjoy travelling around the vast continent of Orsterra; in moving that world to smartphones, though, our goal was to eliminate any movement-related stress as much as possible. In order to achieve that, we essentially added “rails” to the game – you can move the characters by simply flicking your finger across the screen. What came from that was a much simpler movement system, while maintaining the sense of adventure that came from travelling in Octopath.
For those wanting a direct sequel to Octopath Traveler, fear not, a pure sequel is on the way, this is the team’s way though of expanding the franchise in a special way though.
