The director for Square Enix’s forthcoming role-playing gameFinal Fantasy 15 reveals that the title consists of half open world gameplay and half-linear action.
In a recent interview held with the Japanese press outlet Famitsu, Final Fantasy 15‘s director Hajime Tabata discussed many aspects of Square Enix’s soon-to-be-released RPG, with one particular tidbit that stood out being that the game is going to be divided into two parts, as half of the title will be open world, while the other portion is designed to be a more linear experience. Additionally, the director explained that the release’s chapters begin at zero and go through 15.
This has the potential to strike some long-time followers of the franchise as an odd structure forFinal Fantasy 15, but Tabata assures fans it is being done for the sake of versatility and to give players the chance to enjoy a more traditional sense of linear gameplay found in previous Final Fantasy entries. Those interested in the director’s take on the matter can find his statement from the discussion with Famitsu in full below.
The entire game structure for Final Fantasy 15 consists of both open-world and linear parts. The first half keeps going as an open-world, but the story in the second half’s is led by a linear path. That way, you won’t get bored of an open-world as the rest of the game tightens, so we made it in a way that you’ll also get to advance through it as you have in conventional Final Fantasy games. If you play through the first half and only the main route of the second half, I believe the estimated play-time sits at around 40 to 50 hours.
Taking this announcement into consideration, some might interpret Tabata’s explanation about Final Fantasy 15‘s structure to be an inverted version of the way Final Fantasy 13 was organized. While that could be a good or bad thing depending on certain players’ perspectives, one factor the majority of fans will probably be happy about is that unlikeFF 13, Tabata has said there are no plans for offshoot sequels.
During the same interview with Famitsu, Tabata declared that Final Fantasy 15‘s Season Pass won’t contain all of the game’s DLC, as he and his development team at Square Enix have even more add-ons planned for future post-launch materials. However, the director failed to mention exactly what those pieces of content would be, much less how their potential gameplay would be structured or incorporated into the final product.
In any event, after it was recently revealed that Final Fantasy 15‘s release date was being delayed by two months from its initial September 30 launch time, most fans are probably just anxious to get their hands on a copy of the title no matter what kind of gameplay it contains. After all, with Final Fantasy 15 having been in development for almost a decade, it’s safe to say that whatever Square Enix puts out at this point with the title, fans are just eager to play it for themselves.
Final Fantasy 15 is set to release on November 29, 2016. for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
