Octopath Traveler Studio 'Acquire Corp.' Bought By FromSoftware Owner

I hope this doesn't mean we'll never get an Octopath Traveler III.

Not a bad little posse of studios to have under your wing.

@bighirofix Octopath III could be made by Artdink (Triangle Strategy devs) or Historia (Live A Live remake devs). Considering hardware leap due to droping the original Switch support, we wouldn't see the difference in quality.

@bighirofix I hope that it means that we won't get a forced, soulless, ai-generated Octopath Traveler

Acquire by name, and now acquired by nature.

Idk what this means but I want Octopath III please.

Does this mean we'll get a 'Souls-like' Octopath spinoff?

Aquire was actually a long time partner studio of Kadokawa's. Being the main devs behind Technu and Way of the Samurai (though that was before Kadokawa bought Spike-chunsoft). What this and every other reporting of this story I've seen fail to mention is that Octopath was a side-gig for Aquire as a division of Gung-Ho. The guys that used to own Grasshopper (they kept Let it Die in that divorce). Under GH, Aquire was mainly as asset creator for their many MMO's inculding Ninjala, but they also made a fair number of their own IP. In fact, just last year they set up their own international publishing branch. Most likely, that will be merged under Spike-Chunsoft America now. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the Akiba's Trip series; or as I like to call it "What if Yakuza was entirely about pantsing Vampires?" Marvelous was that series' international distributor, and you can actually get the full collectors of the most recent entry for $40. An absolute bargain.

Here comes OctoSouls Traveler.

No, how could this happen? FromSoftware doesn't make games (Sekiro, Elden Ring) for Switch, this is bad news. Damn you Square Enix, why you give them away?

Hopefully they continue to support the Octopath series and putting their games on Switch.

It’d also be great to get a new Tenchu game as well.

@Zeebor15 : Tangentially speaking of Gung-Ho, they need to put out a Grandia III & Grandia Xtreme HD Collection!

Some people compare Octopath Traveller with Bravely Default, but I hated Bravely Default and loved Octopath Traveller. I still haven't played II, I'm waiting for the Xbox release.

@Serpenterror I'm not sure if you're saying this (sorry if not), but was Square Enix its former owner? I know they published Octopath Traveller I and II, but I wasn't sure of that. If that's the case, Square Enix has sold awesome studios, from memory, Crystal Dynamics and this.

EDIT:

Acquire and Square Enix co-developed Octopath Traveller I and II, both published by Square Enix. Acquire was a subsidiary of GungHo until now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquire_(company)

@wuntyme8 Supossedly, Game Arts is working on more Grandia, but it's slow going for them as supporting Gung-Ho's many many MANY live service projects takes priority.

@bighirofix If the producers at Square Enix want to make Octopath Traveler III, they'll just find a different developer. Team Asano has worked with different devs together.

@Serpenterror GungHo gave them away.

Team Asano are the ones with the vision and talent.

Triangle Strategy and Octopath Traveler 2 were developed with different dev studios and both were masterpieces.

Thanks to all the people who posted informative comments, helped a lot as I had no knowledge of the name Acquire and just thought Octopath was made by Squenix.🤷🏻‍♂️ GungHo and Kadokawa I know.

@BTB20 I know that Square Enix was the publisher and co-developer, but I'm not sure if Square Enix owns the Octopath Traveller IP or if it belongs to Acquire.

@rjejr You thanking me? You must be drunk 🤣.

@BTB20 That's a good point and you've put my mind at ease.

Are you all just going to ignore the fact that Acquire got acquired?

NLife, you resisted the obvious joke. I'm not sure if I'm proud or slightly disappointed.

Eh they have worked together forever so this isn’t a big deal. Hope it means a new way of the samurai game is in the pipeline. Or a new Tenchu. (Or ports)

@Banjo-
If you enjoyed the first octopath i imagine you will be in for a treat with the second game, since its essentially more octopath traveller with some additions/improvements/refinements, and for me that was definitely a good thing.

I though octopath traveller developed by internal squareenix devs, I hope we still get octopath traveller 3, or kadokawa let them develop octopath-like games for all console.

Hold on - I have yet to get I, II done or completed yet???

My only response to this is, "Great, the Way of the Samurai developers are back home, can we get an HD port of the first one now?"

@Mgalens I am not biggest RPG fan on NL, but I played the first one in 4K on Series X and it's gorgeous. If the sequel doesn't come to Game Pass (it's confirmed for Xbox), I'll buy it and play it anyway.

I enjoyed the graphics, soundtrack, SFX, the easy UI, settings and navigation and the saving system. I found the stories and the NPCs interesting. I have never used as many strategies in RPG battles before and I didn't even use a single guide, so I felt super intelligent 🤓. E.g., the scholar is defending and leveling magic up, the warrior is buffing himself, the thief is debuffing the enemy or stealing skill points and the merchant is donating the thief battle points for him to perform a level 4 strike next turn. Most RPG have strategies but to be honest I have never be so strategist before. The possibilities are almost infinite whether you're going a bit more aggressive and risky, more defensive or balanced. It's a game that can teach players how to properly play RPGs without unnecessary confusion. You can also use eight jobs at the same time eventually.

The negatives: Tressa's English voice, the awful and tacky combination of old English and modern slangs, the orthography: 'e 'as, hasn'' 'e? and, of course, some bosses. I also disliked that you can only check the equipment for all eight characters at the tavern and to check a character's skills they have to be controlled. So unnecessary and weird decisions aside, I loved the first game.

@Serpenterror We got the Dark Souls remaster and it was excellent. I wouldn't worry too much.

bye bye Octopath 3...

@Banjo- Square Enix is not their owner, I'm just disappointed that Square Enix didn't acquired them and instead they got acquired by their previous publisher From Software. Now that FS acquired them it's likely they won't get to make games for Switch anymore. The reason Acquire was able to make games for multiplatform was cause they were not own by any publisher yet even if they work with them in the past.

@cvrator We're not getting the rest though, that one Dark Souls didn't sell very well.

@Serpenterror I understand 👍🏻. Well, let's see what happens next. I'm quite sure that they'll stay multiplatform.

@Banjo- Yeah you were 1 of them, I like thanking people who go the extra mile and put the link in so I don't have to take anyone's word for it.😎

This will be a wait and see if they truly value Game devs then good setup but if not well we've seen News of lately and it hasn't gone well for Devs and Programmers. So til then it's let's see what they can do.

@HotGoomba Get your humor outta here! These forums are for serious adults adulting about business!

@Steelhead The article should've been titled "Acquire Corp. Acquired by Kadokawa Corp".

I've been playing a lot of Tenchu recently, and the franchise has an interesting history in that Acquire developed it with Sony Music publishing in Japan and Activision in the US. As I understand it, the franchise rights went to Activision and then to From Software. Acquire went on to develop a new ninja franchise in Shinobido before developing Tenchu Shadow Assassins which unfortunately I didn't enjoy. Interesting to see how things have ended up with regard to Tenchu developers and how both Tenchu and Shinobido are under the same umbrella now.

i'm not sure who owns the ip right maybe they both do..

I guess I can say goodbye to ever being good enough to play any future Octopath Games then...

@Banjo- Obviously Square Enix owns the IP, they created it. Acquire was just a support studio that was hired for development. If anything it would have been GungHo who'd own the IP.

@bighirofix Given that Namco publishes many of FromSoftware’s games I don’t know if Kadokawa will care if Acquire makes a game for Square. Though I wonder why Kadokawa bought them.

@BTB20 "Obviously Square Enix owns the IP, they created it."

As I said, I don't know. Do you have a link to an official source that states the ownership of the IP? All I have found is "co-developed by Square Enix and Acquire" and "published by Square Enix". I haven't found any official site or source that states that Octopath Traveller was created and therefore registered and owned by Square Enix. If you find it, I would appreciate it.

@Banjo- https://www.siliconera.com/project-octopath-traveler-developers-answer-project-started-troubles-developing-hd-2d/
Octopath Traveler was created by producers Masashi Takahashi and Tomoya Asano. They chose Acquire as development partner. Acquire is a hired support studio. They don't own the IP. Who else even could but Square Enix?
Square Enix even trademarked the terms for the artstyle HD2D and HD-2D.
And this is what it says at the bottom of the eshop page of both games:

© SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.

Do you think Artdink owns Triangle Strategy?
Does Silicon Studio own Bravely Default and Bravely Second? And Claytechworks then owns Bravely Default II? And Historia owns the remake of Live A Live?
Does Arc System Works own Another Code now? Does Wayforward own Advance Wars now?

Asano games are owned by Square Enix. He's the producer.

If ever in doubt, just look at the eshop or other storefront page or the back of the box.

Octo Souls
Bloodpath Traveler

@BTB20 No need to be so aggressive, I am genuinely interested. In other cases, one of the co-developers creates and owns the IP. Since Acquire was acquired, I just wanted to know what happens with the IP. That's why I said I don't know and why I asked.