Visions of Mana World

Square Enix has spilled a few more beans on Visions of Mana, the freshly announced, brand new instalment in the storied Mana series. For starters, this won't be an open world adventure. Questions were raised regarding the game's scope when its debut trailer showed off some huge environments, but no, it's not quite that big.

Still, it does sound like there'll be a lot of exploration. Square Enix is using the term "semi-open" to describe the title's world, with "vast areas" that are "packed with secrets to discover and enemies to battle". If you played the relatively recent Trials of Mana remake, we would assume that the environments in Visions of Mana will be similar — just a lot bigger.

The developer's also dropped some story details. The main character is a fiery young man named Val, who joins his childhood friend on a journey to the Tree of Mana. We're expecting a charmingly old school narrative from this one.

It's also worth noting that Visions of Mana is being spearheaded by a promising team of franchise veterans, as listed by Square Enix:

Producer
Masaru Oyamada (Secret of Mana 2018, Trials of Mana 2020, Legend of Mana 2021 and more)
Sound
Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana 1993, Trials of Mana 1995, Trials of Mana 2020 and more), Tsuyoshi Sekito (Secret of Mana 2018, Trials of Mana 2020, Echoes of Mana and more), Ryo Yamazaki (Trials of Mana 2020, Echoes of Mana)
Character Design
HACCAN (Adventures of Mana, Secret of Mana 2018, Trials of Mana 2020)
Monster illustrations
Airi Yoshioka (Dawn of Mana, Children of Mana, Heroes of Mana)
Series monster design supervision
Koichi Ishii (GREZZO Co., Ltd.

Visions of Mana is aiming for a 2024 release, but is this an adventure you'll be undertaking? Set off on a life-changing journey in the comments section below.

[source square-enix-games.com]