Jiro Ishii, the creator behind the cult classic visual novel 428: Shibuya Scramble, recently shared his thoughts on the current state of the genre after his latest crowdfunding campaign exceeded its goal. The veteran game designer believes that adventure games – known as visual novels in the West – have reached what he calls an evolutionary dead end, though he’s spotted some promising new directions.

In an interview with Denfaminicogamer, Ishii explained that while the traditional visual novel format seems stuck, two new subgenres have emerged that could shake things up. He calls them “open-world type adventure” and “roguelike adventure” games, though these terms describe storytelling approaches rather than actual gameplay mechanics.

The open-world style lets players experience stories in any order they want, piecing together fragments to understand the bigger picture. Games like 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and the Zero Escape series are good examples. In 13 Sentinels, you can switch between 13 different characters whenever you like, and the story still makes sense no matter what order you choose.

“Roguelike adventures” work differently – they add randomness to each playthrough. Ishii points to Gnosia as the pioneer of this style, where the same basic story plays out differently each time with changed character relationships and roles. A character who helped you in one loop might try to kill you in the next.

“The feeling of going through a world in which the law of cause and effect doesn’t matter – that is the core idea of a roguelike adventure game,” Ishii said. He called Gnosia a masterpiece but noted that few other games are exploring this approach. His own upcoming project, tentatively titled Depth Loop, aims to experiment with this format.

Despite these innovations, Ishii doesn’t think adventure games have achieved the breakthrough success they need. He compared today’s scene to hit games like Higurashi and Steins;Gate, which popularized time-loop stories and reached much wider audiences.