When Square Enix first announced Octopath Traveler for the Nintendo Switch, fans weren’t sure what to make of it. It had a unique art style and felt like an old-school RPG, but they weren’t sure what to expect. Turns out, it was a classic RPG with a legendary story, fun characters, and a unique gameplay hook. Then, in February, they released the sequel (read our review!), and fans/critics liked it just as much. While we don’t know the sales numbers for the sequel, many are already wondering what a third game in the franchise could be.
In a chat with Famitsu, Director Keisuke Miyauchi, producer Masashi Takahashi, and artist Naoki Ikushima talked about Octopath Traveler II, how it came to be in their minds, and whether a third game is an option. Miyauchi noted:
“We haven’t decided clearly on future developments yet, but we have casually chatted about what could evolve in the future.”
Takahashi added that the team had a “crossroads” moment with the sequel on how they wanted to proceed with it:
“We discussed whether we would evolve the series or change it. For this game, we chose evolution. As developers, some of us likely did feel like trying a completely different direction, but we think the players probably wanted to play something like Octopath Traveler after 5 years. If they weren’t able to enjoy the things they liked about the previous game, they’d probably be disappointed. That’s why instead of changing up the game, we decided to evolve it, and focused our development efforts on cramming in everything we didn’t put in the last game.”
So while they did “evolve” things for the sequel, it’s possible they could change things for the threequel. We’ll have to wait and see.