Square Enix’s Project Setsuna Has Sadness As A Theme

Square Enix are working on a new console RPG that is codenamed “Project Setsuna.” While we still don’t have too many details on the title, this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine provides additional details on the project. [Thanks, Game Jouhou.]

Accrdoing to Square Enix, the theme of their new IP Project Setsuna comes from the Japanese word of “setsunasa” which roughly means “sadness” or “sorrow.”

During the interview, Yosuka Matsuda said that the development team of Tokyo RPG Factory that was revealed alongside the project centers around a team of external developers, including a number of freelance staff.

The development period for Project Setsuna is expected to be short, and the game will release sometime in 2016. Once it is released, they’ll carefully look over the results, and decide on whether they’ll continue growing it into a big IP.

“It’s important to create new IPs, but creating big IPs is difficult,” said Matsuda when asked about making new IPs. “Having been looking at the game industry up until now, it’s quite common to see [a video game series] take the form of a trilogy. In that sense, we need to have at least three [titles] before knowing whether it will continue growing or not.”

He continued, “It’s a smaller-scaled challenge up until the second title, and if you’ve raised the series enough to expect a big hit on the third title, then that’s when you can increase its scale. Once that third title becomes a success, that’s when I have nothing to worry about.”