At The Game Awards 2023, a brand-new title in the Mana series was revealed: Visions of Mana. The marks the first original title for the action-RPG series in 15 years, with recent entries being remasters or remakes. Visions will be coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Steam, and Windows in 2024 — and we have first details from Square Enix alongside a debut trailer.

Visions will have you play as Val, a “curious and carefree” young man who hails from the Fire Village of Tianeea. Every four years, a Faerie visits the regions of the world to choose “alms”. Alms are people destined to travel to the Tree of Mana, a massive tree that presides over the flow of mana that sustains all life.

Val invites his childhood friend to a festival to welcome the Faerie, and in the ensuing events, Val’s friend is chosen as an alm and tasked with journeying to the Mana Tree. He decides to set out alongside her as her “soul guard” with the blessings of the villagers. In the images and artwork, we can see Val and his friend accompanied by a blonde-haired character with cat ears and a blue cape, and a silver-haired character with what appears to be a squirrel tail, and another character with long red hair and large platform shoes. We also see a young flammie floating about and a sproutling alongside the party in the key artwork.

The world in Visions is described by Square Enix as an “expansive” with “semi-open fields you can explore smoothly”. Val is seen exploring large plains, snow fields, and mountainous highlands. Themes of nature are highlighted in the game’s colorful presentation, as well as the elemental aspects of mana. We can see Val utilize mana spirits not only in combat, but as ways to traverse quickly through larger areas. Wind spirits send him soaring through the air and water spirits create a bubble around him in underwater travel.

Combat is real-time action, and Val will be one playable character in a party seen fighting alongside him. Val uses a sword at close range, but is also seeing elemental magic as well. A wind-based spell summons a tornado that lifts mushbooms into the air before exploding into a tempest that lifts everyone nearby. Val is seen double jumping and air dashing afterwards to move in and attack enemies. Square Enix mentions that you’ll need to watch the environment as well as enemies’ movements when fighting. You can see notable series monster designs like Rabites in the trailer, but there will be brand-new monsters as well.

Square Enix also shared the lead staff members developing Visions of Mana, which include the return of composer Hiroki Kikuta and monster design supervised by Mana series creator Koichi Ishii. HACCAN will return from Trials of Mana as character designer, and created the new key artwork seen below, weaving in techniques from the late Hirō Isono, known for his highly evocative contributions to the Mana series and its themes of nature.