Why didn’t Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent come to consoles?

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Today was the long-awaited debut of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continentprequel to Octopath Traveler for iPhone and Android, in the West. It is a release that many would like to play on consoles, but why is it only available on mobile? We already have the answer.

At LEVEL UP we had the opportunity to interview Hirohito Suzuki, producer of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. There we took the opportunity to ask why they did not launch this installment on consoles, especially considering that Octopath Traveler It has been a success on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X and PC.

According to Suzuki, the reason they released Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent for mobile is because they want as many people as possible to play it. This is why they focused on developing it for the platform that has the largest number of users: cell phones.

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“The title was made with the mission of bringing Octopath Traveler to as many people as possible. From that perspective, we decided on the free-to-play format for the mobile market, which has the largest user base.
However, in terms of gameplay experience, we want it to feel like Octopath Traveler made for console,” he said.

Later, Suzuki told us about the differences between developing this mobile installment and the one they did for consoles: “From a mobile perspective, the particularly difficult elements involved the controls and the user interface. How can we deliver an RPG experience using touch controls? That was challenging. Especially the controls for moving around the map and the boost controls during battle had to be reworked several times until we got the ideal shape.”

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An evolving story

Taking advantage of the fact that we were talking about the difference between making games for mobile and consoles, we asked Suzuki about the challenges in creating the story of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. After all, unlike the Octopath Traveler original, this installment has a story that is evolving.

As he told us, there really wasn’t a huge difference between making the story of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent and of Octopath Traveler. In fact, the mobile game is a more interesting experience because they can adjust according to the reactions of the fans.

“About the main story, we were writing it for 2 years in the Japanese version before it was released and I think there are no major differences from when we did it for the main game. However, because it is a game as a service we can observe the reactions of the players and make adjustments to the details in a solid way.

In particular, if you watch Book of Rememberance that allows you to read events outside of the main story or content like side stories. I think you can see our commitment to evolution and responding to player needs,” he said.

In the talk Suzuki told us that Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent will debut in the same state in which it arrived in Japan. That said, it will be updated gradually and the western version will receive updates at a faster rate than the original release did. With this, it is possible that at some point both versions will be on par.

Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is now available for iPhone and Android. You can learn more about mobile RPG by clicking here.

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