Octopath Traveler 0 Preview – Preview
Rebuild a town and double the fun of combat in this RPG prequel.
The second demo opportunity during my Square Enix PAX West appointment was for Octopath Traveler 0, and I went into this one with the strongest mix of trepidation and excitement. My original concern was that this was a mobile version, Champions of the Content, being brought to life on consoles, but in just under an hour, I can admit that such a concern was all but washed away. The new town-building mechanics combined with the familiar exploration and combat seem to make for a winning combination, with a few slight reservations.
Left to my own devices, I spent the first 10 minutes or so playing around with the town building, which involved a series of largely empty plots that I could erect houses, shops, decorations, and a variety of path materials. It wasn’t until returning to the town later in my session that I could better understand the progression and purpose of reconstructing the town; a character freshly recruited could be installed as a shopkeeper, for instance. Going a bit deeper, that new citizen’s shop would expand with additional equipment and items based on contracts I could find in the world, eventually expanding to carry in his shop products from many different stores found in the cities of Orsterra. The possibility of not only enlarging the town of Wishdale and its population but also the potency of their trade is an enticing prospect.
The second portion of the demo took me to the town of Sunshade, with which you might be familiar if you played the first Octopath Traveler game. Dancer Primrose’s starting location, Sunshade was a place where I could reacquaint myself with the series’ signature path actions, convincing, enticing, or persuading people in town to provide information or perhaps something more material. Here I also found the objective of my mission, a merchant named Ludo. I didn’t have all of the context for needing to find this individual, but conversing with him revealed our goal of bringing a merchant to Wishdale, so that we could boost trade in the town as part of our rebuilding efforts. Of course, Ludo had a request of his own: he asked us to clear out a group of lizardmen plaguing a nearby trade route. Doing so would prove us worthy of his services, so off I went.
Exploring the town and then the areas surrounding it felt very familiar as someone who finished Octopath 1 and 2. The dungeon didn’t take long to reach, nor did it take long to navigate, but a new element was particularly intriguing: elite enemies. Guarding a chest was a large sandworm that I could see on screen and choose to challenge or avoid. This particular foe put up more of a fight than the boss of the dungeon, but I was told that there are different tiers of elites, with some needing you to come back later to be better prepared to take them on. A war of attrition, the sandworm fight eventually saw me emerge victorious, and shortly after I found the lizardmen Ludo charged me with eliminating.
One of the major additions to Octopath Traveler 0 is in combat, where you bring a team of eight to the fight instead of the usual four. There are a score of interesting dynamics at play as a result. For one, you can freely swap between individual front row characters as soon as their turn comes up, which can be particularly helpful in trying to break enemy defenses by hitting their various weakpoints. For another, allies in the background recover some HP and SP at the end of each round of combat, allowing them to soothe their wounds for a spell. As was the case in the first two games, your team gain action points (AP) with every passing turn, and these AP can be cashed in to make up to four total actions in a single turn; your backrow teammates also gain AP at the same rate, so you can deploy them strategically, perhaps against a defenseless boss, to dole out major damage. It stands to reason that having eight characters in battle is a bit more demanding than four, but the strategic possibilities are all that more plentiful in turn.
Octopath Traveler 0 appears to be playing with the tried-and-true formula established in the series that built upon the foundations of Final Fantasy and Bravely Default. Playing on a Switch 2 in handheld mode felt incredible, with smooth performance and attractive HD-2D graphics looking great on the console’s larger screen. I was a bit skeptical early on in the appointment because of a rudimentary feeling to the base building, but when Ludo joined the town and I could see how his offerings would grow over time, I was definitely intrigued by the potential of rebuilding Wishdale. While I had hoped to gain a better sense of the overall story, I left having only checked out some of the party chat moments and the interactions between the protagonist you create, a comrade named Phenn, and Ludo, so I do want to learn more about what’s going on in this prequel and how it informs Octopath 1. For certain, though, my appetite has been whet, and I’m ready for more, of the soundtrack especially. Octopath Traveler 0 comes to Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 on December 4, 2025.
