The Final Fantasy 15 Story Is Coming to an End
The final piece of downloadable content for Final Fantasy 15 is set to release next summer, about 13 years after the initial announcement. It’s a strange coincidence since the game was originally announced as Final Fantasy Versus 13 back at E3 2006. And with the game’s end is now in sight, director Hajime Tabata is looking back on the lessons learned from the experience, which certainly had its ups and downs.
“During the course of the development and release of Final Fantasy 15, it’s not like everything was thoroughly written in stone compared to what we’re going to be doing in the future,” he said. “With a lot of it, we were playing by ear, and there were a lot of things that we learned from there. We also realize there were a lot of shortcomings on our side.”
Considering these ups and down, Tabata believes that Luminous Productions has a bright future because of what they have learned. But right now, the focus is on finishing Final Fantasy 15.
“Initially, [2017’s DLC] Episode Ignis was supposed to be the finale,” he said. “The end of Final Fantasy 15. However, just because we planned it out that way doesn’t mean that was the right way to do it.”
“There’s still this kind of connection between us and the users. So why not try and create something new based on that need? That’s what we want to do with the next DLCs: create an active relationship with the users,” he continued. “We want to thoroughly secure the story in places where people think there are some pieces missing in the puzzle — we want to alleviate those issues.”
“At the same time, we want to build something new with the users, create a different sort of possibility with the direction that the story of Final Fantasy 15 could head. That’s something that’s going to be new, and it’s going to be pretty exciting to make. The next DLC will be a brand new story,” he added. “Last year’s DLC was already initially planned from the main game. [Episodes] Ignis, Gladiolus, and all that — that was Season One. This will kind of be like moving into a Season Two.”