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At Tokyo Game Show 2025, French indie studio Artisan Studios showed off their upcoming JRPG Lost Hellden — a turn-based RPG that explores what happens when people lose their fight against inner darkness. We didn’t get to play the game ourselves, but watched as the producer demonstrated gameplay and explained the systems before sitting down for a brief interview.
Lost Hellden takes place in a world controlled by the Seven Deadly Sins. When children are born, priests perform a ceremony that binds them to one sin — pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, sloth, or gluttony. Everyone spends their life resisting that sin. If they fail, they transform into monsters.
The story follows twin brothers Syphil and Lep, the first twins ever born in this world. During their ceremony, something unusual happens: Syphil receives no sins at all, while Lep gets all seven. The priests take both brothers to the capital to raise them under watch. Years later, Lep disappears, and Syphil begins searching for him. According to the developer, every monster players encounter was once human. That’s the core tragedy of the game’s world.
Gameplay
Lost Hellden uses turn-based combat, but with a system called Pressure. Players build up pressure by hitting enemy weaknesses and positioning attacks carefully. When enough pressure accumulates, enemies become stunned and lose their turn. This lets the party chain attacks together. The developer described the ideal battle as one where “the enemy never gets a chance to fight back.” The focus is on learning patterns and finding the right approach, not quick reactions or extreme difficulty.
The game features eight playable characters and twenty-one jobs, including swordsmen, fencers, and white and black mages. Characters start with a base class but can advance into specialized roles or mix abilities from different jobs. Players can also enhance weapons and armor using Ability Orbs to adjust their team’s capabilities. The developer noted that since Lost Hellden is single-player, they don’t need to balance for competitive play — they only balance for what’s fun.
Between main story sections, players can take part in three mini-games. The most developed one is called Hexagon, which plays like a strategic tabletop game. Players collect over 250 tokens and can challenge people across different towns and cities. The developer mentioned that some testers spent hours playing Hexagon and temporarily forgot about the main story.
Visual Style
Lost Hellden uses fixed camera angles similar to games like Resident Evil Zero, combined with 3D environments. The team wanted the game to feel nostalgic without looking outdated, appealing to both veteran JRPG fans and newer players familiar with anime and modern action RPGs. The developer pointed to games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Metaphor: ReFantazio as proof that turn-based games can still attract large audiences when done well.
Artisan Studios was founded by former Ubisoft developers who left to make games independently. They explained that at large studios, development often focuses on market demands rather than player experience. Their approach is to create games they can sustain long-term rather than chasing short-term success.
This philosophy connects to Lost Hellden’s themes — in a game about resisting temptation, the developers are also resisting certain industry pressures. Lost Hellden is planned for release in 2026 on PC and all major consoles worldwide.
