Final Fantasy XV: Game Will Become Linear Towards The End

According to the game's director, the open-world portions of Final Fantasy XV won't last the entire time.

Final Fantasy XV Latest News

During a PAX interview with IGN, Hajime Tabata stated that Final Fantasy XV will begin as an open-world game, but become more linear in the second half in order to better tell the final portions of the story.

According to Tabata, this change in focus won't come until "very close" to the end of the game, but that a certain story point involving a train will mark the game's shift in content direction:

"Once the train sequence starts, the whole structure of the game changes drastically," says Tabata. "That said, you will be able to go back to that open world environment through the menu, so you will still be able to experience the adventure that awaits you over there, which amounts to over 200 hours of gameplay."

Exactly how long this more linear portion of the game is going to be remains unknown. This is a fairly notable departure from some Final Fantasy games of the past which begin as linear story experiences and open themselves up as the player progresses, but it is one that some recent Final Fantasy titles and other RPGs have utilized to great effect.

Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata spoke with IGN at Gamescom and revealed that the major reason behind the recent delay of the game has to do with a patch for the title that the team was going to release on launch day, but have decided to incorporate into the actual retail version of the title instead. According to Tabata, a major factor behind this decision was the fact that some people would be playing the game offline and wouldn't have access to this important update otherwise.

Tabata estimated that the content the team intended to implement via this patch would take about two months to program into the game which is why the release date was delayed appropriately. As for the nature of this content, it appears to largely comprise of various bug fixes and visual updates as opposed to any significant new gameplay content.

He also assures fans that the recently released footage of the game represents the title in it's nearly completed state.

Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata revealed during Square Enix's E3 live stream (via IGN) that the game's campaign will take up to 40-50 hours to complete.

"In terms of clearing the main story, we're anticipating about 40-50 hours of gameplay," said Tabata. "At the very least there will be 40 hours of content to enjoy. But there are a lot of side quests and other extra things. With just the extra stuff alone, we're looking at maybe 100 hours of gameplay. So if you count all of that, maybe we're looking at around 200 hours of gameplay."

"A lot of fans have been waiting quite a while for this game, so we wanted to make sure there's a lot of content for them to enjoy," said Tabata.

Final Fantasy XV Release Date

Square Enix has released an hour of Final Fantasy XV gameplay footage. It's new footage that had not been made public until now, so beware: there are spoilers in the video. Check it out below:

Square Enix has confirmed that Final Fantasy XV has been delayed to November 29, 2016. The game was originally scheduled to arrive on Sept. 30. Director Hajime Tabata made the announcement in a video from the developer:

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Final Fantasy XV Trailer

Square Enix had a big presence at E3 2016 with Final Fantasy XV presentations for both the Microsoft and Sony conferences. First, check out some gameplay from the Microsoft presser:

At the Sony conference, the Final Fantasy XV VR experience was revealed. You'll be able to play as Prompto. Check out the trailer below:

Here's another trailer featuring many of the cities, monsters, and new characters you'll meet during your adventure:

Well, that looks absolutely wonderful. Both fantasy and sci-fi elements populate this world, from the giant that cues Florence and the Machine's cover of "Stand By Me" to the cool-looking mechs. There seems to be a lot to see and do in the new game. We definitely enjoyed the first demo, Episode Duscae.

Which brings me to the Platinum Demo, a second demo for Final Fantasy XV that you can download right now on the PSN and Xbox Live. The demo is completely standalone from the main story and won't spoil anything in the game.

There's a trailer for that, too:

In the free demo, you'll play as young Noctis, who seems to be having a bit of a nightmare that involves being shrunken down to the size of an action figure...? But you'll also get to play as sword-wielding grown-up Noctis, too, by the looks of it.

Oh, but there's so much more Final Fantasy XV! A new five-part anime series has been announced. It's called Brotherhood: Final Fantasy, and it will run up to the release of the game in September. You can watch the first episode here:

Finally, because yes, there's just a little bit more, a new CGI movie tie-in is also coming. It's called Kingsglaive and it features the voices of Luna Freya, Lena Hedey, Sean Bean and Aaron Paul. Here's a trailer for that:

Looks pretty. No release date on that yet, although it will be out this year.

In 2015, the first Final Fantasy XV demo was released. It's called Episode Duscae, and if you didn't get a chance to play it, you can check out a glimpse of it below:

In an earlier trailer, we met the new Cid, who isn't actually a Cid at all, but a CIDNEY. Now that's a play on the character that we haven't seen before. Over the years, Cid has appeared in every installment in the series since Final Fantasy II. He's played many different roles, whether a member of your party or a pilot or a mechanic. Cid's always there!

Check out the trailer:

It's been a couple of years since we started hearing about the mysterious Final Fantasy XV, the next major installment in the classic fantasy RPG series. We received a couple of teasers and then nothing. But 2014 marked the return of the FFXVmarketing machine with some new trailers that showed off all of the beautiful next-gen fantasy goodness.

What was missing from all of these trailers was English. All of the trailers so far have been in Japanese with subtitles. No longer. We've got some English Final Fantasy XVfor ya:

The game was originally unveiled at E3 2013, where the game's original title, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, was changed to Final Fantasy XV, turning the title into a main installment in the series. Check out the announcement trailer: