With the One Piece manga currently on hiatus, we have been blessed with a behind-the-scenes look into the development process of the new One Piece game, One Piece Odyssey.

One Piece Odyssey is a turn-based JRPG that is going to be published by Bandai Namco and is also the latest game in the One Piece franchise where you will take control of Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hats as they venture around an island with plenty of quests, dungeons, puzzles and fights in turn-based combat.

One Piece Odyssey is due out for PS4 and PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC via Steam in 2022.

All we know about the release date is that it’s expected to drop in the second half of this year. Many speculate that it could even drop later this month as the 22^nd of July marks the anniversary of the manga, but logically speaking, that seems a bit too soon.

So for now, I guess we have to settle for the Dev Diary brought to us by none other than the main producer of the game, Katsuaki Tsuzuki.

And as the resident otaku, I’m here to break the Dev Diary down.

Concept

According to Tsuzuki, he and his team wanted to provide fans of the series with a new way to immerse themselves into the One Piece world. To do this, the team behind the game built the world so that it’s able to bring to life “the drama, adventure and battle elements” that are unique to One Piece.

We also learn that the game has been in development for five years with the creator of One Piece himself, Eiichiro Oda having designed our favourite pirates three years ago. That was around the time of the Whole Cake Island Arc in the manga.

NEW CHARACTERS

One Piece‘s editor-in-chief at the time, Ken Takano goes on to elaborate that when Tsuzuki’s team got back to Oda with the final setting, storyline and game footage, Oda was so enthrauled by what he saw, he decided to create two original characters exclusively for this game. These characters were Adio Suerte and Lim.

Along side the birth of these two, Oda also drafted some new animals to be featured in this world such as the Leviathan and Dry Penguin.

LORE & SETTING

Unfortunately, nothing has lead us to believe that the story in this game will be canonical and even if it was, it would be hard to place it in the timeline. What we do know for sure is that it’s definitely post–time-skip as you can tell by the Straw Hats’ design and that the game will mainly take place on an island called Waford.

Development

Tsuzuki then unveils that ILCA also helped with the development of the world One Piece Odyssey takes place in. This is not surprising as not long after the Dev Diary was uploaded, Bandai Namco announced their partnership with ILCA in the form of a new studio named Bandai Namco Aces.

Tsuzuki then goes on to explain the effort his team has gone through to make sure to stay as true to the source material as possible when it came to designing aspects of the game such as the clouds, the animations and expressions. Especially because the game is in 3D rather than 2D like the anime and manga.

FEATURES

• Be any of the Straw Hats – You will be able to switch between most of the the Straw Hats on the fly as you explore the terrain and overcome obstacles that only certain members can overcome.
• Immerse yourself into the lore – Explore the mysterious dungeons and caverns where you will have to solve puzzles and find your way through maze-like systems as you find bits and pieces that relate to the story and see how everything adds up.
• Fight like the Mugiwara – Using turn-based combat, you are able to use all the abilities that the Straw Hats possess from the source material. Use Luffy’s Gum-Gum Pistol, or Zoro’s Three Sword Style or you can avoid combat entirely and run away like Usopp and Nami do.