Whenever you make a new property, you hope that it does well. Then, if that new property is a hit, you try and see if you can replicate that success. For Square Enix they’ve been trying to tap into the old-school RPG market in multiple ways over the last several years via their HD-2D title. Their latest one was Octopath Traveler II, which came out in February. The first game in the line was a big hit in many ways, so it would be curious to see how Square Enix and Team Asano would follow things up. As it turns out, they did a good job.
It was revealed today by Square Enix themselves that Octopath Traveler II has officially sold 1 million units. That’s an impressive number and the milestone many people cite as proof of a game’s success. The company made a tweet not only highlighting the success but showing off a new piece of art highlighting some of the characters:
Arguably, the people who should be most excited about this is Team Asano. They were the ones putting all they had into these “old-school RPGS” and trying to make the HD-2D feel pop in all the ways that matter. As they’ve proven now across many titles and successes, this is indeed a great way to make things work and breathe new life into an “outdated” art style.
However, while this is a good thing to celebrate, many people have noted a few catches here to point out. One of which is that while the original and the sequel hit one million units, the original did it much quicker. In fact, the first game reached a million units in only a few weeks and got to 1.5 million units sold not too long after that. It was because of that success that it was ported over to the PC.
But the sequel has taken much longer to get to that point. So what caused the “lapse” in sales? The quality was still there, so that can’t be the reason. The likely cause was it being multiplatform. That might sound counterintuitive, but it’s possible that because it was spread out across all these platforms instead of focusing on one, many people forgot about it because its marketing was laxer due to all the places it would be. Either way, it’ll be curious to see how Square Enix measures up the franchise going forward.