All Articles: Final Fantasy XV

The saga of Final Fantasy Versus XIII took another strange turn today as Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada denied reports the game has been canceled. In a post on Twitter, Wada claimed that Kotaku was taken in by “a hoax” and confirmed that the game is still very much in development.

The CEO also revealed that he recently attended a meeting related to the game and praised the “quality of the cityscapes.”

So Final Fantasy Versus XIII isn’t dead, but it still doesn’t have a release date or even a tentative plan for when it’ll make it’s next public appearance.

[Source: Andriasang]

Final Fantasy Versus XIII has been in development for at least six years and in all that time, only a handful of trailers for the game have ever been released. No one outside of Square Enix has ever played the game, which was purported to feature gameplay similar to the Kingdom Hearts series.

And now it looks like no one ever will.

According to a report on Kotaku, Square Enix has quietly canceled the last unreleased game from their “Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy” project.

Kotaku’s tipster went on to say that the publisher has no plans to publicly announce the cancellation, due to fears of what the news will do to its stock price. When asked for comment on the game’s development status, Square Enix replied with this cryptic statement: “We have no information on the status of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but will be sure to update you as it becomes available.”

If you notice, they completely sidestepped Kotaku’s original question, “Is Final Fantasy Versus XIII still in development?”

A second source told Kotaku that “development and resources” behind Final Fantasy Versus XIII have already been folded into the development of Final Fantasy XV. However, exactly what this means for the franchise’s next numbered entry is unclear.

In what is sure to be much more intense entry than its series’ timely companion (Final Fantasy Type-0) Final Fantasy Versus XIII‘s full-quality trailer shows off some very detailed cinematic scenes as well as some examples of the game’s fighting mechanics. As with Type-0, it is difficult to tell what exactly the battle system will be like, but it looks as though it will be similar to that of Final Fantasy XIII, possibly with more real-time play.

Though I wasn’t a huge fan of Final Fantasy XIII, I may just give Versus XIII a shot. But, shouldn’t it technically be Final Fantasy 15? Anyway, video above.

UPDATE: Square Enix has pulled the trailer from YouTube. The publisher has promised to post an official version on January 27, which you can see right here.

Many gamers in RPG circles have been calling Final Fantasy Versus XIII “our last hope.” We’re banking it all on this game, that it’ll be what Final Fantasy XIII should’ve been: the mind-blowing cinematic JRPG that defines a generation. I really don’t want to jinx this, but it’s looking like Versus XIII will be that game. In this trailer revealed at the Square Enix 1st Production Department Premier (I love typing that), Tetsuya Nomura and crew lay it all on the line, showing exploration, combat, and beautifully-rendered cut scenes that look substantially better than the original trailer from 2006. It seems to be a real-time action RPG; the combat plays like a third person shooter when controlling party members with guns; you can get into turrets and even mechs to fight enemies; players will fight hordes of monsters at a time in massive, open environments; and Noctis can be seen fighting enemies on platforms flying through a city as terrifying velocities. This last scene seems to corroborate that there will be a lot of interactive set pieces to get the blood pumping – another scene shows the protagonist running from a Behemoth vomiting fireballs apparently in-game, and the windows crash in suddenly at a party, catching everyone off guard.

The end also confirms that the game will still be PlayStation 3 exclusive, and it shows from just how stunning the graphics are in the cutscenes. The only tragedy in this whole matter is that no release date has been pinned down. Many of the aspects of the game appear to be finalized, though, so hopefully we can get our hands on it soon.