In its first major visual overhaul ever, RPG Maker will soon let you make games in the style of Octopath Traveler

Browse through Steam's unfiltered list of new games and you'll encounter at least one or two games made in RPG Maker every week. Few of these projects reach the popularity of something like Yume Nikki or Omori, and I'm guessing many are never played at all. But I love that a relatively simple toolset is still in such active use.

RPG Maker games tend to have a stigma attached to them, though: Many use stock RPG Maker assets, so there's a certain inevitable, unmistakable look about them (16-bit Final Fantasy, basically). There are loads of plug-ins, loads of RPG Maker editions, and you can make your own assets for your RPG Maker projects, but most people don't use them.

The RPG Maker "look" is about to undergo a pretty seismic shift, though: 2.5D is on the way.

Gotcha Gotcha Games teased as much yesterday, and if you love the style popularised by Octopath Traveler, but also used in other modern Square Enix RPGs like Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake or Star Ocean: The Second Story R, then you may feel like a pig in shit once this drops at some unspecified date in the future.

There's at least one obvious limitation compared to Square Enix's 2D-HD games, though: the models in the trailer above move along an invisible grid, whereas in Octopath Traveler movement is more free-ranging. But there's some impressive details, especially the shadows and the illumination. Best of all, for RPG Maker users inclined to make their own textures and character models, it doesn't look like the process will change much.

No word yet on when the release date will be, or even whether it's a discrete RPG Maker product or an expansion on a previous one.

To learn more about RPG Maker, at least from the vantage point of 2011, here's the secret history of underdog game engine RPG Maker and how it got its reputation.