The next big installment in the Final Fantasy series is coming next year. Unfortunately, that’s about as much as we know. Director Hajime Tabata confirmed that we won’t see Final Fantasy XV out this year, but that fans can look forward to playing it before 2017. Tabata told Gamespot at Gamescom, “At the very least, I can tell you that it isn’t going to be released this year. I think we’ll be able to tell you when we’re making the announcement around PAX Prime, at the end of this month…we can certainly say to people: it’s not going to be 2017. It’s going to be before that.”
Final Fantasy XV has had a fairly long development cycle, and some fans were worried when we didn’t get much in the way of news about the game from Gamescom. Tabata reassured fans:
“I understand why people are feeling that way after coming to Cologne and speaking to a lot of the media. We really do get the feeling that people are a bit worried. Certainly, one thing I would like to say to them to reassure them, is that we’ve set down the release date, we know when it is, and we’ve got a complete road map lined up, right up to launch, and we’re proceeding along that as planned.”
Final Fantasy XV is the latest in a decades-old franchise of tons of Final Fantasy games and sequels and spin-offs, but only the 15th full official title in the series. It tells the story of crown prince Noctis, who is caught in a war between his own kingdom (Lucis) and a neighboring enemy (Niflheim). After tragedy strikes Lucis during what was supposed to be an effort toward peace, Noctis and his comrades must try to secure peace on their own.
We got a new trailer for Final Fantasy XV yesterday at Gamescom showing a young Noctis and his distraught father, Lucis’ King.
