When Square Enix revealed Octopath Traveller, the company entered a new era with its new HD-2D visuals, taking retro pixelated characters and dropping them into detailed 3D environments. This has appeared in multiple Square Enix games, notably the Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. Others have taken note of this and it appears one of these companies is Nintendo.
Nintendo has recently filed a new patent titled “Non-Transitory Computer-Readable Storage Medium Having Game Program Stored Therein, Game System, Game Processing Method, and Game Apparatus”. To break this down into simpler terms, the patent is for 3D games that use 2D-inspired elements in the visuals. In other words, this would be very similar to what you see with HD-2D games.
There is a bit more though as the patent also mentions areas of the game that would still be 3D in creation, but would appear very similar to old-school 2D games. This would create a “flattened” perspective that might appear like a traditional side-scroller to the average player, but would actually be made with 3D creations. The patent goes into detail about how this visual style would make use of enhanced lighting and shadows to give impressions of depth and positioning for characters and backgrounds, something that would be far beyond what was possible in old-school 2D games.
This all being said, Nintendo files many patents and does not always use them. We will have to wait and see if Nintendo will make use of this technology in future games.
