At 2AM this morning, Square Enix brought us an absolutely huge announcement regarding the new instalment to their legendary RPG franchise: Final Fantasy XV
Their big theme was fifteen announcements relating to the game.
First off the creator of the Final Fantasy series Hironobu Sakaguchi introduces the audience and web viewers to the show and how the vision for Final Fantasy 15 was to bring the game back to its challenging roots.
Next up we saw the ‘Reclaim your throne’ trailer for the game, featuring audio from Florence And The Machine.
We are introduced to the hosts for this evening: the popular duo from KindaFunny.com – Greg Miller and Tim Gettys.
The third announcement was a colossal reimagining of the title artwork for the game, with the traditional style art brought to life in 3D glory.
Fourth up was the introduction of several important people during the games development, including composer Yoko Shimomura as well as a video message from the series’ veteran composer Nobuo Uematsu (who did not provide audio for this game, but provided a welcoming message for fans).
The crowd goes wild for the creators and what they have seen so far, before seeing a message from Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine:
The scene then moves over to a comfy couch along with a big red button… thankfully they didn’t press it just yet.
We see a ton of gameplay elements including travel (running, Chocobo drifting, road trips and more), as well as the battle mechanics, which look a lot more like the method used in the Kingdom Hearts series of games than anything I’ve seen from the Final Fantasy series so far. There is heavy reliance on Noctis’ ‘Warp’ abilities, which allow him to travel across vast distances very quickly.
The giant screen then shows off a huge variety of environments the player will get to traverse in the new game, ranging from technological cities to deserted truck stops, lush jungles to mysterious caverns. There were immediate jokes in the comments regarding whether the consoles would even be able to render the scenes being shown. The environments can even be affected by your battling: firing ice spells at enemies can freeze the ground (as well as scare opponents away) and huge Titan-like beings tear the land asunder in their quest to squish you into pulp.
We are introduced to the four main characters: Noctis, Ignis, Gladio and Prompto before –
things get turned up a notch when they announced a 5 part anime called Brotherhood which you will be able to watch absolutely free online. It will bring in the backstory for the four main characters from their childhood onwards along with introducing the incredible interweaving story that has been created for this game. You can watch the first episode here:
You will get to see all 5 episodes before the game’s release.
Even bigger, a feature-length movie: Kingsglaive has been made showing the scenes that happen just after Noctis and his friends leave their homeland. Follow Noctis’ father King Regis and his Glaive Nyx as they fight impossible odds to protect the last crystal in the world from a deadly enemy.
Several of the voice actors in the movie were announced, including:
Lena Headey (Game of Thrones, 300, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) as Luna.
Sean Bean (Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Goldeneye) as King Regis [Does that count as a spoiler? -ed] .
Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Need for Speed, Exodus) as Nyx.
Overall quite a star-studded cast for a CGI film not made by Disney!
For the fans of the minigames in Final Fantasy games there was a huge announcement in JUSTICE MONSTERS FIVE, the all new playable pinball style minigame for Final Fantasy 15. What’s more is this game will be playable on iOS and Android with pre-registration open right now!
Next up Matt Kishimoto of Square Enix America introduces us to the all new Platinum Demo coming out on the Xbox One store today. This all new demo introduces you to a unique story that takes place outside the main game. You play as a young Noctis and get to perform some unique features such as control the weather, turn into monsters, control toy cars and bonk enemies on the head with a toy hammer. You also get a pet Carbuncle, which unlocks in the main game if you complete the demo.
This demo is free, and available to play on the Xbox One store right now!
The Deluxe and Special Edition versions of the game were shown off:
The deluxe edition will come with a steelcase, special DLC and a Blu-ray of the Kingsglaive movie.
The Collectors Edition features a Play Arts Kai Noctis figure, both the Brotherhood and Kingsglaive anime and movie, the game soundtrack, a huge amount of exclusive downloaded content and a hardcover artbook for the game. This is limited to only 30,000 copies worldwide for every major console so get in quick; as far as I can tell it’s only available on the Square Enix North American Store.
Finally after bringing the director of Final Fantasy 15 Hajimi Tabata on stage they pressed their big red button (and a magic air button) to reveal the launch date for the main game:
September 30th, 2016.
They finish off the show with one more trailer, this one showing off all new features of the game including even more giant monsters, epic boating and a transforming car sequence.
And that was everything from the main show. The aftershow featured really cool interviews with people such as Epic Meal Time, the director of Kingsglaive and a huge interview of several of the highest profile folk working on Final Fantasy 15.
(On a side note the Japanese translator was a dead ringer for Jason Statham).
A packed announcement all round. Square Enix are obviously pulling out all the stops for this new chapter in the franchise with an anime, feature length movie, mobile games, unique demo experience, star studded cast and so much more on top of the actual game. The only disappointing note was nothing announced for PC, but the Xbox One will feature everything shown in the incredible trailers and more besides.
Final Fantasy XV releases on Xbox One on the 30th of September. The first part of Final Fantasy XV: Brotherhood is available now on Youtube. Final Fantasy XV: Kingsglaive will be released this Autumn. The Final Fantasy XV Platinum Demo is available now on the Xbox One Store.
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