It turns out Octopath Traveler 2 on Xbox is happening after all, over a year after the RPG first launched on PlayStation, PC, and Switch. Square Enix announced Octopath Traveler 2 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Windows will launch sometime in early 2024.

The announcement didn’t include a more specific release window, nor did Square Enix say whether Octopath Traveler 2 would be on Game Pass. 

Octopath Traveler 2 not launching on Xbox in early 2023 came as a bit of a puzzling surprise. Its predecessor was a Nintendo Switch exclusive in 2018 before releasing on PC and Xbox Game Pass a little while after. Square Enix has yet to publish the first Octopath Traveler on PlayStation, but the sequel launched on PS4 and PS5.

The original surpassed four million units in sales, Square Enix said in the announcement. The publisher didn’t say how many units Octopath Traveler 2 has sold since it released in February 2023, though by June 2024, sales had passed 1 million copies.

The Octopath Traveler 2 development team told GLHF they worked hard to improve every aspect of the game, including more jobs, increased flexibility in combat, and a more interesting world, though the story was one of their bigger achievements. Octopath Traveler 2 refines the eight heroes, eight stories approach from the original that resembles SaGa and Live A Live as much as it does Final Fantasy.

Amnesiac clerics, half-beast hunters, wronged warriors, desperate thieves, and optimistic merchants all follow their own paths as they gradually converge and uncover a darker, larger secret behind the world they live in. More and better side quests give the world a lived-in feel that the first game didn’t have, and if you throw in one of the year’s better soundtracks as well, you’ve got the makings of a strong RPG.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF