Square working on original, Unreal-powered action RPG

by Alexander Sliwinski on Nov 29th 2011 6:33PM

It's still going to be a little while before "real" news shakes out, but some details were recently revealed in Famitsu (via Andriasang) about one of Square Enix's upcoming Unreal Engine games. The project will be an original (meaning not Final Fantasy nor Dragon Quest) action RPG under the direction of Ryutaro Ichimura (Dragon Quest 8 and 9).

Ichimura told Famitsu that the game's staff traveled for two years and conducted user surveys to research art and gameplay direction. With the basic concept complete, the team is now looking to grow beyond the staff of 35 and begin production.

(Pictured: Square's UE3-powered The Last Remnant)

Source: Andriasang

Tags: microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, Square-Enix, UE3, Unreal-Engine-3, xbox

Reader Comments (44)

Good...Now where is Final Fantasy Vs. 13?!?!

@neoand12

That's what I'm saying!

@neoand12 After December, every major game they've announced will be out except Versus. Versus will be the focus of their marketing in 2012, with tiny snippets being released in magazines overseas all year, character reveals, summons, gameplay details, etc. They'll show it off at E3. If we're lucky, it'll come out December 2012 in Japan, and 2012/early 2013 in the west.

That's my best guess.

@neoand12 Seriously.

@neoand12
I can only imagine how much Vs. is going to disappoint everyone.

@neoand12 While I completely agree, the funny thing is when Square Enix announces they are going to focus on releasing games annually people get upset as well. They seem to be considering the extremes between "Taking unreasonably long" and "rushing a game out for to please players".

You lost me at "Square." /Yawn

@DerpMchurson

Yet you still managed to find "SUBMIT".

@DjiegoMoz UMAD?

Last Remnant looks good in that photo.

@kentuckyfried The PC version of it is actually pretty good. One of the rare times where the PC port is actually better than the console version.

@TacoHell

The console version looks good as well when all the textures have actually decided to load on the screen.

That's due to the Unreal Engine, where the PC is king. When it comes to Unreal, your PC's quadruple-the-360's video memory and 8x-the-processing-power actually matters and is utilized.

I'm probably in the minority here but I hope it's something like Nier. I really liked that game despite its flaws.

@APCMice That was an awesome game. I really hope that the Drakengard games which were made by the same team either end up as downloadable titles or get put on a PS3 disk together. I know that's really not very likely, but I can still hope.

@baddates77

I've actually never heard of those games (my JRPG repertoire is pretty small) but now I'll have to check them out, if I can find them lol.

@APCMice I am still soooo confused about Nier getting bad reviews. That game was nothing short of outstanding.

@serialsleeper They didn't get through the other endings ;D

@APCMice

Even lower majority here. I'd actually like a new Last Remnant game that doesn't have a counter intuitive leveling system.

Make the leveling system actually work the way you tell us it does in the game Squeenix and I'll buy it.

@This Little Man Says His Name Is
Agreed. I actually really liked TLR but it was a kick in the gut to leisurely spend the game fighting most enemies I came across because I enjoyed the battle system, and only realising 80% of the way into the game and a gamefaqs read later that by doing so I'd totally gimped my team. Although saying that, it did make the final boss a challenge, which is a rare thing these days, so maybe it's not so bad!

Wait, they went around asking for art and gameplay directions? This baffles me for two reasons.

1) Since when has SE given a shit about user feedback? Look at the FF14 beta and it's huge tester feedback on how broken the game was, and they released it anyway without a single change.
2) Games created by focus group input are the worst kind of evil. That is the epitomy of souless game design. It's sad they don't even know what they want to create, so they just start asking around.

@Jennacide Or look at FFXIV Ver. 2.0 for the exact opposite of what you're saying. Or FFXIII-2 being much more open and non-linear. Or how this new, unannounced game has a small team of 35 people instead of the overly large team used for FFXIII that was too big to communicate efficiently.

As far as number 2, that's pretty much all Valve does, so I hope you trash them even more.

@Shinta
idc how unlinar ff13-2 is, that game is going to be crap regardless. why? because the characters are extremely dull and also im willing to bet that the game will STILL play itself as long as you keep tapping the X button.

@Knives Chau It never played itself if you wanted to get past the first difficult boss. Also, you could turn off auto-battle in the options menu at any time.

As far as XIII-2, it's mostly the same battle system. But they've added blood damage, which is a type of damage that slowly accumulates and cannot be healed, limiting your max life. So, you can't turtle your way through fights and just sit on COM/SEN/MED and beat the fight super slow. You have to use paradigms efficiently. Also, the game is supposedly more difficult and has an easy mode added so people don't get stuck.

That is until they cancel it after realizing it isn't Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest

Why does Joystiq post such old news?

Well, as long as Ichimura strays towards something like Dragon Quest 8 instead of DQ9 with this new game, it should be good. I still play DQ8 a lot, I dumped DQ9 as soon as I beat it because of its uninspired, downright crappy online (I know one other person within 2-3hrs who owns the game, and no conventions occur near where I live).

@Bielzer

I've played my fair share of NES/Genesis games as well, I just didn't like DQ9 post-ending. Up until that point I was enjoying it (and the online shop was bearable).
Yet post-game, you have to rely on the online portion to unlock quests/cameos, as well as getting to the higher up maps. Sure you can try and find higher tier treasure maps on your own, but its random as sin, since I went from a 60-70 lvl appropriate map which rewarded me with a lvl 1 map. It isn't fun killing the same boss and lvl 1-10 enemies again and again just trying to reach a map that actually helps you.

Square needs to release Final Fantasy Versus 13 before starting on a new project!

@mrjeffreyxp They have like 9 teams.

Unfortunately, their best team has been tied up with FF Versus XIII for what seems like 100 years. That's why we've got no Kingdom Hearts 3 or a "proper" Final Fantasy that was at least as good as FF10.

(Insert obligatory comment about a myriad of games that everybody wants but Square-Enix absolutely refuses to make)

Ok...did square enix not learn from Last Rhemnant about using the Unreal Engine for RPG's? Unless this too will be a PC and X360 right now, PS3 "as far as we know" title. Where in the blue hell is Last Rhemnant for the PS3?? *smh* SE never ceases to amaze me...

Sooooooo Kingdom Hearts 3??

@Ryuk i know right? PeoPle are asking for versus 13 and I wanna slap every one of them. Kingdom Hearts 3 needs to come out.

I can only think of three or four Square-developed titles I've loved in the past decade and Ryutaro Ichimura worked on two of them. Having a sliver of optimism when it comes to Square feels downright uncomfortable, but there's no reason to lose it just yet.

Oh of course another "action" RPG.... How about you actually give your fans an RPG!!!

So, The Last Remnant 2?

It's androgynous-teenager-flatiron-teasing comb-razor hurrcut-extentions ACTION jrpg.

The image made me think they were announcing something directly relating to The Last Remnant, like a sequel. That would have been awesome.

Oh well, as long as the "listen to what the hell people like in a game" era starts with FFXIII-2, I'm fine with whatever.

I read that at first saying
"square working on unoriginal real-powered action rpg."
To bad... that made me laugh more :(

I hope it's a Nier fishing game.

There was a brief moment in the current gen when we got decent RPGs. Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, The Last Remnant, Tales of Vesperia, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean 4, Eternal Sonata, Enchated Arms, Arc Rise Fantasia.... all seemed like they were released in a two-year window.

Then.... silence. We got a brief fart with FF13, and an abortion with FF14, and then... nothing.

(We kinda sorta got Xenoblade, and The Last Story is supposedly coming, and FF13-2 looks maybe-sorta OK... but it's nothing like the olden days)

A (good) multiplayer Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 3 follow up?

Square working on original, Unreal-powered action RPG

Reader Comments (44)

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:40PM neoand12 said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:46PM NPTran23 said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:52PM Shinta said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:02PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:05PM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 9:11PM Knoxrun said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:42PM DerpMchurson said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:58PM DjiegoMoz said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 9:19PM DerpMchurson said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:47PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:48PM TacoHell said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 8:18PM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 2:59PM EIranzer said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:49PM APCMice said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:04PM baddates77 said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:07PM APCMice said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:25PM serialsleeper said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:45PM Eniko said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 8:20PM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 5:30AM HSamster said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 6:56PM Jennacide said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:08PM Shinta said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:32PM Knives Chau said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:58PM Shinta said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:04PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:05PM gtakiller0914 said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:05PM DevilSei said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:28AM DevilSei said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:09PM mrjeffreyxp said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:47PM Eniko said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 2:57PM EIranzer said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:09PM ShadowXIII said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 7:37PM RagingStormX said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 8:15PM Ryuk said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 10:38PM 880Cloud088 said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 8:19PM RickGhastly said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 8:21PM LimitedVertigo said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 9:02PM Soiden said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 9:50PM Arcana said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 10:41PM Nobledevil Gaming Optimist said

Posted: Nov 29th 2011 11:01PM akeso said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 10:53AM Mini Spartan said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 3:04PM EIranzer said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 7:50PM TrueWhiteBoy said

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