The Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase on Thursday showed trailers for some games already announced for the Nintendo Switch 2 and revealed a few new ones as well. The biggest of those debut games is the third game in the Octopath Traveler series, Octopath Traveler 0.
As the «0» implies, this game is a prequel to the first Octopath Traveler game, released on the original Switch in 2019. This turn-based RPG makes a big change to the series by allowing players to make their own protagonist instead of picking a character to play. As the hero, players will have to rebuild their hometown and fight powerful enemies with the help of more than 30 recruitable characters.
The Octopath Traveler series has a key feature of having eight playable characters. Each character starts from a different part of the world of Osterra and has their own unique job with abilities, and their story arc plays out and eventually meets up with the other heroes. Another trademark of the franchise is its HD-2D graphics and the Break and Boost battle system. In battles, players have their own Boost points that can be used to quickly Break a character, so they can become unable to fight or can be saved to unleash more damage on enemies who get broken during regular attacks. The result is surprisingly fast combat.
This new entry in the series isn’t the only prequel for the franchise. In 2022, Square Enix released a free-to-play gacha game for Android and iOS called Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. That game was a prequel to the first Octopath game, so it’s unclear how Octopath Traveler 0 will fit into the timeline.
Octopath Traveler 0 will come out on Dec. 4 for the Switch and Switch 2.
