Rather than playing as eight heroes who start their journeys in different places, you’ll be following the story of your own customizable protagonist, who has a whole ton of party members to help them out.
From the trailer alone, there are quite a few other noticeable differences from the previous games, like the lack of character names on the combat screen, as well as the whopping eight party members in combat at once. In previous games, while you have a full party of eight as the name would imply, you’d only select four of them to actually fight at once.
Notably, this game also takes place in Orsterra, the same setting as the first Octopath Traveler, which explains why we do see members of the original gang show up in this trailer. Their roles aren’t super clear, but if that massive line-up at the end of the trailer is what we think it is, this game will have way more than eight playable party members.
Even with all the differences, the game still seems to be the franchise we know and love at its core. Snappy turn-based combat with fun combos and pretty animations? Check. Beautiful HD-2D graphics? Check. Outstanding soundtrack? From what we could hear in the one-minute trailer, check.
Octopath Traveler 0 will be released for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on Dec. 4.