Square-Enix has been pulling out all the stops at this years Tokyo Game Show, but perhaps the biggest trailer and announcement from the company comes from the highly-anticipated, much awaited Final Fantasy XV. A new trailer for the game was revealed today and, on an interesting note, game director Testsuya Nomura is stepping down from his director duties.
Indeed, if you hear nothing else from TGS 2014, you’ll probably come away with this article knowing that Final Fantasy XV is surely making some big progress in it’s development and that judging from the trailer and the director switch from Nomura to Hajime Tabata, there seems to be a pretty high chance that the game is near completion.
But let’s focus on Tabata for a second, a longtime game programmer for Square-Enix and director of titles like Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Type-0 and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. At first, it may seem odd that a guy who has primary worked on titles geared for mobile platforms is approaching a console role-playing game and picking up where Nomura left off.
There is a legitimate reason for that according to the company.
In concerns with FFXV, Square-Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda notes that personnel rearrangement was necessary for a steady and healthy development for another upcoming fan favorite, Kingdom Hearts III.
“As the director of Final Fantasy XV, Tetsuya Nomura has mainly worked on the original concept for the story and universe in addition to creating the characters. Hereafter, he will be focusing his efforts on the production of titles that can only be made possible by Nomura, himself, and delivering products that exceed the quality of past titles, starting with another one of his representative projects, Kingdom Hearts III,” Matsuda said.
“Square-Enix will continue to work on these titles with the best staff formation in an effort to deliver them to everyone as soon as possible and appreciates your continued support.”
Although today’s trailer for Final Fantasy XV only shows a work in progress, it’s becoming a real thing of beauty. Beautiful is probably an understatement at this point. The trailer shows off so many things at once in under three minutes, that it’s hard to keep up with the magnificent and relevant intricacies of it all.
The battle system certainly looks to be third person and free roaming, something that we’ve seen before in the Final Fantasy XIII series. Whats pretty unique about the battles is the way that your characters will interact with each other during them. Weapons appear out of nowhere and in-hand when Noctis–the main protagonist–and his crew are ready to shoot or strike. The beasts in this world look giant and brooding, others small and ghastly.
What we haven’t seen, however is the way that characters will be traveling throughout the world: in a black, slick car. This is quite a deviation from and a subtle nod to previous Final Fantasy titles, where the primary mode of traveling across the landscapes is by airship.
“it’s been a long time coming,” Noctis says. “Almost there.”
Considering the release windows for Final Fantasy Type-0 HD and Final Fantasy Agito+, we expect “almost” to mean around April of next year. Let’s hope we get more word on the game’s vague story and release date soon. For now, feel free to drool over the offical Tokyo Game Show 2014 trailer for Final Fantasy XV.
