Project Setsuna’s theme is “sadness”

Project Setsuna, Square Enix‘s E3-announced, 2016-due console RPG from its new Tokyo RPG Factory studio, is themed around “sadness” (setsunasa in Japanese), company president Yosuke Matsuda told Famitsu.

According to Matsuda, the team handling Project Setsuna consists of a core team of external staff, as well as some freelancers.

Project Setsuna‘s development period is planned to be rather short. After its launch in 2016, Square Enix will look at the results of the release and decide whether it has enough potential to eventually become a big IP.

When asked about new IP, Matsuda said, “While it’s important to foster new IP, it’s difficult to turn them into big IP,” adding, “looking at the game industry right now, many games take the form of a trilogy.”

Matsuda continued: “In that sense, we won’t know until we make at least three titles [within that IP] whether or not it will continue to grow. They’ll be small-scale challenges up until the second title, and if it grows to the point where we expect the third title to be a big hit, then we’ll increase the scale. If the third title is successful, then we’ll have nothing to worry about.”

If you missed it, catch some artwork from Project Setsuna here.

Thanks, Games Talk.