tri-Ace, the studio behind Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, and Resonance of Fate, appears to be hiring for a new RPG for PlayStation 5. Specifically, tri-Ace seems to be hiring 3D VFX artists. The news comes from a Twitter posted translated by Gematsu.

“Why not work with us to create future action RPGs with the high-quality and exhilarating presentation of next-gen consoles?” the listing asks. “We don’t wait for commercial engines to support new platforms like PS5, we develop [the engine] ourselves,” it continues.

tri-Ace hasn’t made an original AAA game in some time, opting largely to work on remasters and remakes of previous Star Ocean titles and a Resonance of Fate remaster in the last few years. The studio’s most recent original title was Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, which released to mix reception in 2016. Hopefully, whatever tri-Ace is hiring for, whether it’s Star Ocean, a sequel to one of their other IPs, or something else entirely, will be good.

tri-Ace is hiring 3D VFX artists. "Why not work with us to create future action RPGs with the high-quality and exhilarating presentation of next-gen consoles?"

Also: "We don't wait for commercial engines to support new platforms like PS5, we develop [the engine] ourselves." https://t.co/eiCyyTRfqV

— Gematsu (@gematsu) May 24, 2021

In this feature, we’ll be talking about fifteen such games, which started feeling – to us, at least – like they were a bit too long. Before we get started, it bears mentioning that all fifteen games that we talk about are games that we like (and in many cases, absolutely love), and them being on this list isn’t supposed to be a slight on their quality as much as it is a observation about one very particular thing.

With all that said, let’s jump right in.

PERSONA 5 

Persona 5 was a game that we all waited for for a long time, which also included a couple of heartbreaking delays, but boy was it worth the wait. Not only one of the best RPGs of this generation, but probably of all time, Persona 5 still isn’t a game without its flaws. For instance, its 90 hour-runtime is perhaps a tad too much. One arc in particular – looking at you, Haru – feels like it’s padding the game out more than anything else. The upcoming Persona 5 Royal is supposed to be even longer, but hopefully, with all that extra content, it’ll manage to accomplish better pacing than the base game did.

So, you probably remember that Square Enix has been teasing a big name secret game for a while now. We have known that it will be a AAA console or handheld game, instead of being something disappointing like a mobile port or sequel. Now, ahead of this game’s full reveal tomorrow, Square Enix has gone ahead and given us a tease: ‘STAR.’

That’s it, but it’s pretty much telling us exactly what the game is at this point. To be honest, it’s too on the nose. The STAR, assuming it isn’t part of a larger word, almost certainly refers to the Star Ocean franchise. Star Ocean was originally an Enix series, which naturally came under Square Enix after the merger more than a decade ago. The last entry, Star Ocean 4, was widely considered disappointing, and led to the entire series being put on hiatus. Now, the franchise may be getting ready to mount a comeback.

We will have more for you when the game is fully revealed and announced tomorrow. Stay tuned.

The Star Ocean series was created by Yoshiharu Gotanda and tri-Ace, and takes a wildly different approaches to gameplay compared to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Players can create their own items, and the gameplay is more action-oriented, akin to Namco-Bandai’s Tales series. It’s also one of the earlier examples of being able to alter the game’s outcome through the choices you make in the game.

Whether this is a new Star Ocean or not remains to be seen. But considering the reception and acclaim that Star Ocean: The Last Hope received in Japan, it wouldn’t be one of their worst ideas (*cough*Lightning Returns*cough*).

Source: DigitalSpy