Triangle Strategy producers talk HD-2D, storytelling, and no permadeath

destructoid.com:

The tactics genre has seen a resurgence as of late. Big entries like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, coupled with impending releases like the Front Mission remakes and Firaxis’ Midnight Suns, have grid-based strategy on the rise. And Triangle Strategy is at the vanguard.

Triangle Strategy is the latest tactics RPG from Square Enix, developed with Artdink and the infamous Tomoya Asano. The latter made a big impact on the RPG scene with, among other games, 2018’s Octopath Traveler. Its HD-2D style has become more prevalent in the years since, and some have wondered whether Triangle Strategy might make a similar impact on the tactics scene.

We’re still working through the game here, but ahead of launch, we got a chance to talk with the producers of Triangle Strategy: both Asano and Yasuaki Arai. We discussed storytelling, battles, motivations, and the tactics RPG genre as a whole. Here are a few of our big takeaways.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

One of my first questions for the pair was why they turned to the tactics RPG genre. The standard party-based RPG is no stranger for any of these developers or publishers, but it’s been a while since a major tactical RPG came out of Square Enix.

Asano outlines two reasons for turning to tactics, the first being visuals. “We thought the HD-2D visuals would really match and look great in this tactics RPG genre,” said Asano. “And even after our release of Octopath Traveler, we saw that there were some reactions and kind of wanting to, anticipating, a tactics, FFT-style game with the same HD-2D visuals.”

The second is that, with the set-up of Octopath Traveler, the team had to work with standard RPG conventions.

“Specifically for a standard RPG Octopath Traveler, we were