Final Fantasy XV just got another delay, this time keeping the game out of reach until November 29.
With FFXV only a month away, fans around the Internet are coping with the news that the game’s launch has been delayed from the original September 30 release date. The project’s director, Hajime Tabata, explains in a video on the Final Fantasy XV YouTube channel that the game just was not up to their standards.
According to Tabata, Final Fantasy XV was ready to play from start to finish, but it would have required an extensive day-one patch in order to achieve the level of quality he and his team wanted. Knowing that many players simply don’t have the Internet connection necessary to download such a massive patch, Tabata and the FFXV team made the call to postpone the game’s launch and package what would have been the day-one patch onto the game disc itself.
Tabata explains: [blockquote cite=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wepgwx_9kto”]We have put our whole lives into developing this game, with the intent of bringing the highest quality of game experience to every single player who buys it. And I personally started developing FFXV from a desire to let everyone play a Final Fantasy that was so outstanding and amazing, that it would send other games running in panic… I am very sorry, but I must ask for just a little more time to polish our game up some more.[/blockquote]
The “master version” of the game–what would have been launched in September–will be available to players at this year’s Gamescom. A 30-minute gameplay video will also be released on their YouTube channel.
A Personal Note
Look, this isn’t the first big game that has been delayed. GTA 5 was delayed for PC for quite a long time, and it was even delayed twice in six weeks! No Man’s Sky was also delayed for a couple of months. Some games have been delayed for so long that fans of the postponed franchise — *coughBeyondGoodAndEvilcough* — have either given up entirely on the game coming out or rejoice when it is even mentioned.
Yes, this does mean that you will have to wait a little longer for Final Fantasy XV. No, that doesn’t mean that the whole game is getting changed into a completely different product. No, that doesn’t mean you should harass journalists for trying to cover the news.
I actually applaud the FFXV team for this move. Day-one patches have, in my opinion, have been an excuse for many developers to rush an unfinished product to market and “fix” it at a later time. People who don’t have great Internet connections can’t get these patches. Exceptions can be made for the occasional game that had a rare game-breaking bug (like Pokemon XY), but this should not be the norm. For a massive AAA development team to acknowledge and refute the choice of releasing a day-one patch is massive. If all goes well, this might signal a return to form for the industry.
Or it could be a bust. We won’t know until the game comes out November 29. Until then, feel free to wait with excitement and anticipation. Just remember to breath, okay?
