One Piece Odyssey is the latest big-budget game to release using the best-selling manga series, with Bandai Namco and ILCA teaming up to bring the Straw Hat pirates to life in an RPG befitting of the franchise. With how the game has been marketed, however, many One Piece fans will be asking if Odyssey has a specific place it falls in the series’ canon timeline.
One Piece series creator Eiichiro Oda did have direct involvement with developing the story, world, and character designs players will encounter while playing Odyssey. This gives it a lot of weight when it comes to storytelling and moments involving some of the characters—even if they might feel a bit strange even for One Piece at times.
So whether you want to fact-check where the story falls in the One Piece timeline to ensure you aren’t spoiling yourself on key moments from the manga and anime, or you just want to know if the game is actually canon, here is an explanation for just how One Piece Odyssey fits in.
Where does One Piece Odyssey fit on the One Piece story timeline?
First warning, if you haven’t caught up to at least the Dressrosa Arc in the One Piece anime or manga you won’t be caught up to where One Piece Odyssey seemingly takes place. But that is about as far as things get.
If that is all you wanted to know, you can click off and come back to this article once you experience the game for yourself, because this next bit of explanation will spoil some of what happens during One Piece Odyssey’s story specifically.
The Dressrosa Arc’s ending is technically where the majority of potential spoilers or other surprises stop. You will mostly be experiencing an original story in One Piece Odyssey while also revisiting key events from four specific arcs—Arabasta, Water 7, Marineford, and Dressrosa. Certain elements of those arcs have changed, but it is mostly a highlight reel that players will go through at various parts of the original story.
As for where that puts us in the overall One Piece timeline, Odyssey is likely sitting smack dab between the end of the Dressrosa Arc and the start of the Zou Arc—which puts it right at the start of when some of the crew prepare to head off for Wholecake Island.
Obviously, that doesn’t make perfect sense, but it is the best place to slot it in since most of the crew is split up after Zou and only reunites again in Wano. Also, the clear absence of Jinbei should be a pretty clear indicator here too.
If that isn’t enough for you, we also know that Odyssey has been in development for roughly five years, according to producer Katsuaki Tsuzuki who notes that work was ongoing even while he was still producing One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4, which was released in March 2020. Likewise, the story scenario script that Oda helped on was completed around 2020 and the game’s production was about “halfway through.”
Wano was well underway by that point, but it is likely Oda had this idea drummed up well before then, so putting it on a timeline right after Dressrosa is about all fans can do right now. But that leads to the question of whether it is canon.
Is One Piece Odyssey’s story canon?
Of course not. Just because Oda worked on the story and there is a somewhat plausible place for Odyssey to fit in the timeline—if you ignore some oddities—does not make it canon.
There are no video games with original stories released under the One Piece name that fit into the canon timeline and stick. This works in a similar fashion to most of the One Piece movies, which all have original stand-alone plots and are generally set in broad timelines around big story arcs.
It is funny to think about though since there are non-canon situations in Odyssey when you revisit actual canonical events through memories. This gets pretty confusing if you really dig into it, but the answer still comes out as no, One Piece Odyssey is not canon.
Published: Jan 18, 2023 02:46 am