When it comes to video games, you usually know what you’re going to get via the game’s title. However, sometimes between both AAA developers and indie titles, they give their games a title that is “unique” or has a “secret meaning” of sorts. For the recently released Triangle Strategy from Square Enix via Team Asano…that title had a LOT of people talking.
Mainly because it felt “odd”, and many (including us here at the Nintendo Entertainment Podcast) felt that a better and more logical name would’ve been “Scales of Conviction” as that was a key mechanic in the game. However, Triangle Strategy is what was chosen, and in an interview, producer Tomoya Asano spoke about how this all came to be:
“We usually put a lot of thought into determining the game’s titles. One of the things that we make sure that we think about is if the player can imagine what kind of game it is based on the title. When you look at Triangle Strategy, a triangle is three angles, and then ‘strategy.’ So it’s a strategy game that you play from three angles. Octopath Traveler is also named kind of from that perspective: Octo is the eight paths that you’re traveling.
We wanted to see what the reactions would be like behind ‘Project Triangle Strategy.’ So having ‘Project’ at the start of the name would give us a little bit of room to be able to change the name, but it ended up resonating with the audience, so we thought we’d keep the Triangle Strategy name.
… Another process that we go through when naming games is there’s a native English speaker on our team. So I talk to them when we’re naming the title, and one of the points we talk about is if the name is as weird or unique as Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler.”
It is weird, and unique, but thankfully, the game overcomes that “uniqueness” as we showed in our review.
