Final Fantasy XV, which was first announced at E3 yesterday, is not a PlayStation 4 exclusive: it's also coming to Xbox One.
The much-delayed game, originally titled Final Fantasy Versus XIII when it was revealed at E3 seven years ago, will be released in 2014 for both platforms.
It's a much darker game than the recent Final Fantasy XIII series, both in terms of mood and aesthetic; contrary to the colourful designs of recent FF titles, XV's characters are clad almost exclusively in black, wielding mostly silver and black weapons.
It's understood that the storyline has a particularly dark plot, and demonstrations shown so far resemble a mood not dissimilar from the Final Fantasy Advent Children movie. It also appears to be a bit of a sausage-fest, with an apparent roster of mostly male characters, the protagonist of which is Noctis, a "Crown Prince" from the Kingdom of Lucis.
We watched a demonstration of an in-game battle, which saw three characters in a number of vast, present day-looking city environments, battling familiar Final Fantasy enemies --
Behemoths and Iron Giants, for example. They fought with a combination of some of the biggest swords I think I've ever seen in a FF game (which is saying something), as well as a range of guns. The user interface is minimalist, with small HP meters and command options taking up very little of the screen.
In one scene, it appeared characters can also switch quickly between multiple weapons and use fight modes called "Warp" and "Linkform". Characters were moving freely around their environment, meaning attacks on enemies can come from a variety of angles.
It may come as no surprise, then, that fans looking for a return to turn-based, or more traditional role-playing combat, may be disappointed -- the game is highly action-oriented. Like Final Fantasy XIII, fights are fast and take place in real-time.
When questioned about this decision, Final Fantasy brand director Shinji Hashimoto told us, "I believe that there's a future for action RPGs and command-based RPGs. It's not that we're not thinking of the future of command-based titles, but we think the action-based [battles] fits FFXV best."
Visually Final Fantasy XV was in keeping with Square Enix's typical high standard for graphics, although for a next-gen title texture details such as facial drawing didn't appear quite as richly detailed as others we've seen at E3. It definitely appeared like a very high-end current-gen title, which can unquestionably be attributed to the game's long development time, originating at the beginning of the current generation of consoles.
Commenting on the decision to move to next-gen part way through creation, Hashimoto commented, "While development was going on, the world and contents expanded, and to deliver it in an appropriate way for the fans [we felt] it might be appropriate to move the title to next-gen."
Final Fantasy XV will be released in 2014 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
