Square Enix delivered some very unfortunate news this evening in a special, 30-minute announcement video. Effective October 31st of this year, Hajime Tabata, the director of Final Fantasy XV and long-time Square Enix veteran, formally resigned from the company. In the wake of this news, it was also revealed that 3 of the 4 planned DLC releases due to drop next Spring have been cancelled. Episodes Aranea, Lunafreya, and Noctis are no longer in development and will not see a release. However, Episode Ardyn will continue development as planned and is still on track for a March 2019 release. It will be preceded by a short animation (Final Fantasy XV Episode Ardyn – Prologue) which will serve as a prologue of sorts. The director and producer of this episode both emphasized that while the lore from the other three episodes will not see a release in game form, they are still very interested in releasing these stories in some other format. They’ve asked for more time to make announcements pertaining to that.
In addition to all the negative news, there were some positives that arose from the stream. One such tidbit was the announcement of a standalone version of the Comrades multiplayer DLC. This standalone version will replace the existing version and will be available for free to those who already own the original. Alternatively, those who do not own the old version can purchase this new version separately when it is made available. Some additional content, including 10 new bosses, will be added to the new version as well. The title for this new version of Comrades will be Final Fantasy XV Multiplayer: Comrades. The replacement will occur on December 12th, 2018. It should also be noted that for owners of the Windows edition of FFXV, the standalone version will not be available. The additional content will instead be patched into the existing version.
The last big announcement from the stream was for a crossover event between Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy XIV. This event will begin on December 12th at 5 PM PST. This will come as a free update to all Final Fantasy XV players and will include an in-game quest involving a character from the Final Fantasy XIV universe. The quest will end with a fight against Garuda, a primal from FFXIV. Those who complete the quest will unlock special FFXIV-themed costumes for Noctis and his friends.
While it is definitely heartbreaking to see that the FFXV universe will never truly be completed in the form that it was intended, this writer is able to take some solace in the fact that the development team seems interested in completing the story some other way. I’ve long welcomed the idea of content from the universe spanning multiple formats, so seeing the story continue on in some other form is still better than nothing at all. Let us know your own thoughts on these announcements below. Also, be sure to check out Square Enix’s official site for additional details.
SOURCE: Press Release
