Get Ready To Don Some Tin Foil Hats For Speculation
Gematsu reports that Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi is set to announce a new game during a Famitsu Niconico livestream on June 22 at 20:00 JST. While it’s possible that it will be an announcement of a sequel to the studio’s mobile game, Terra Battle or its console port, there are a few other signs that seem to point at a grander announcement.
1. The studio has released two soundtracks on its YouTube channel for an unannounced title
This isn’t the strongest evidence, but it’s certainly something to note as both soundtracks feature character designs too. I haven’t played Terra Battle since it launched, but I do think that it looks like the character designs in one of the videos look more restrained and different from the mobile title.
2. Longtime Sakaguchi-collaborator, Nobuo Uematsu, will be a guest on the stream
Things are beginning to get juicier as Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu will also be featured on that Mistwalker livestream as a guest. Sakaguchi and Uematsu are two names worth a metric ton of JRPG goodwill. That said, it’s fair to say he could be here for another Terra Battle announcement as he was also responsible for Terra Battle‘s score too. Thus, we’ll have to also look at the next point too for that bit of JRPG magic.
3. The Silicon Studio partnership
I think this is the strongest evidence for a bigger announcement. Last year, Bravely Default developer Silicon Studio announced a partnership with Mistwalker that will combine the “outstanding imagination” of Mistwalker with the “technology and long-term management capability” of Silicon Studio in order to “provide the best experience for gamers around the world.” The studio has created two engines, Mizuchi and Xenko, with the former being an impressive real-time graphics engine and the latter being catered for VR gaming. It’s important to note too that Silicon Studio doesn’t currently have an official project announced Bravely Default‘s sequel in 2015. Thus, I’m speculating that this new game will use on of those two engines.
Well, we don’t have to wait too long to see how far off I am.