Chrono Odyssey Devs Detail Their Design Philosophy, Gameplay, Player Freedom, Combat, Beta & Much More

Now that Chrono Odyssey is on track for a closed beta, the team has a new developer interview discussing their goals for the game, how they aim to make progression feel just as engaging as the endgame, offering players a flexible experience, the upcoming closed beta test, and much more.

In creating the game, they didn't want to have just a simple fantasy adventure game, they draw some influence from games like Chrono Trigger, as well as flavors of cosmic horror and sci-fi to go along with the fantasy elements. Through deep, nonlinear gameplay experiences emphasizing player agency, the world is where the past and future feel in conflict with one another, and even a significant dose of dread and awe along the way. 

In addition to offering a nonlinear gameplay experience, flexibility is key to the experience.  progression will come through combat but grow via things like crafting and trading, they want to reduce rigid roles and offer options. 

For combat, the team offers a lot of freedom on how to play. Flexibility comes through weapon switching, which lets you vary your combat strategy as you need to. This includes core mechanics like traversing timelines, freezing time, and even going back and making different choices to change the journey. They take an ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ approach with weapon switching, offering passive benefits, while using your skills and  learning how to pull off strategic combos. 

The upcoming closed beta test offers both single player and team content. You can learn the ropes and get the feel of combat before teaming up with others to take on  challenges that require collaboration.

If you are interested in Chrono Odyssey, watching the full video is worth your time, as they delve into their design philosophy even deeper, talk more about the upcoming closed beta, as well as how feedback from that test and beyond will fuel their post-launch expansion plans.