One of the biggest video game releases of 2016, Final Fantasy XV, has just been pushed back several months. The latest entry in the long-running, enormously popular Final Fantasy role-playing game series was supposed hit the shelves in September. But the game’s developer, Japanese company Square Enix, just announced a new release date: November 29.
Games get delayed all the time, of course. The hold up is especially notable with Final Fantasy XV because it’s been in development (in one form or another) for nearly a decade.
The game’s director Hajime Tabata posted a personal address to YouTube about the delay, in which he apologised to fans and explained the new release date as a means of making the game as good as possible.
“We have put our whole lives into developing this game, with the intent of bringing the highest quality game experience to every single player who buys it,” Tabata says in the video. “And I personally started developing Final Fantasy XV from a desire to let everyone play a Final Fantasy game that was so outstanding and amazing, that it would send other games running in panic.”
In case it wasn’t already clear, Tabata doesn’t believe that the version of the game that exists now will deliver on his goal of sending “other game games running in panic”. But he and his team are going to make sure that the game that arrives on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC this November lives up to the high expectations he’s set for it.
Final Fantasy XV was announced in 2006 as an exclusive title for PlayStation 3, and forms part of the “Fabula Nova Crystallis” subseries, which includes Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Type-0. It was to have been called Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Set in a world “where fantasy meets reality”, this darker tale follows Crown Prince Noctis and his comrades on an epic journey to reclaim his right to the throne in the Kingdom of Lucis by defeating the warmongering empire, Niflheim.
Meanwhile, two more characters have been confirmed for the cast of World of Final Fantasy, another much anticipated Square Enix title that features a host of protagonists from the Final Fantasy universe. Terra and Bartz from Final Fantasy VI and V, respectively, have been added to the game, along with Tidus and Yuna (Final Fantasy X) and Lightning (Final Fantasy XIII), according to its official Japanese website. The game aims at a much younger audience, with characters presented in chibi style, and is scheduled for global release in October on PlayStation 4 and PS Vita.
Source: SouthChinaMorningPost
