Final Fantasy XV’s Absence From E3 2014 is Not a Good Thing

Stephen from Leviathyn dares to speak against popular opinion by citing why Final Fantasy XV's absence from E3 is a terrible mistake for Square Enix.

[Chris092]

Maybe they want go save "new information" for TGS.

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

We say that every year...

But I think I read Hashimoto said they would show more at an event shortly after E3, so hopefully "soon" actually means soon this time.

[UltimateMaster]

Damn it.
Ohh well. I knew it wasn't coming this year.

[sonerone]

like in the past 6 years

[joab777]

Thing is...we cannot hate on them for showing us so much every year that doesnt release within the next yr, and then be mad when they actually choose to hold back. I want this game to be great and could care less if its at E3. I just wanna see whats up with 14ARR.

[3-4-5]

Can't wait until 2020 to play it.

[maximus1985]

also factor in the last minute delay 2021....oh wait theres the new ps5 and and xbox2 by then sooooooo

[Patrick_pk44]

"2020" that is too generous, the game won't release in our life time! Maybe our kids will play it?

[adventureghost124]

Still, that doesn't make a load of sense. E3 is the biggest gaming event of the year, why would they miss out on it?

[3-4-5]

Remember when FF7,8 &9 were released ALL within like 3-4 years of eachother.

What happened to that?

* If Dev's focused on Art Style instead of realism games would only take 1.5 years instead of 3.

[wnek9]

its not at tgs this year

[Abriael]

Amazing, thought it was a good thing here. Silly me.

[-Foxtrot]

Well there is some silly people who think it's good because "Well it means they get to spend more time on it so it will be more amazing"

...Yeah like we haven't waited enough ¬¬

[MightyNoX]

So glad I got off the FF wagon but I'm still amazed at the twinges of pain I get whenever I see S-E doing stupid crap to sink further into irrelevancy. Please excited, indeed....sigh.

[Squall_23]

Of course not ..Squere is hidden something :/

[Irishguy95]

There only big FF game not appearing at E3. Yeah right. Specially with how far its come along. I mean do they simply have nothing to show now to increase hype?

Ah summons, its just...it kinda should be in the spotlight now and closing in on release at this stage.

@ godmars, there is actually a bit of one of those engines being used for FF15 :) They did say when it's finished FFXV might be ported to it entirely. Who knows

[Taislin]

I know they think it´s not the right time to show it, whatever that means, but couldn´t they at least give out an interview talking about some gamepla mechanichs, Lenght, world and what not? They don´t need to efectively show us the game running t 100% or a demo, but just hearing what they´re doing right now would be good. I´m just getting a preety bad vibe from all of this.

[Summons75]

It's fine, stop whining. We saw a ton of gameplay last year and before that for those intelligent enough to keep track instead of pretending that it was vaporware basically know the entire premise and a good deal of the development.

Now, Kingdom Hearts 3 not being at E3 is worrisome seeing as it's been 10 years overdue and we got only an announcement trailer and gun keys now.

Both will probably be brought to TGS with more info.

[Ratty]

Nomura said before he would only start working on KH3 after FFV is done so if FFV isn't making it to E3 I sure as hell wouldn't expect KH3 to make an appearance.

[DeadlyOreo]

FFV. Cool.

[Ratty]

Oh right. FFXV. FFV was a good one too ;p

[DragonKnight]

Would you get off Square Enix's balls for ONE SECOND and be an actual gamer?

This isn't alright. This game has been in development for 8 frickin' years and they've shown next to nothing about it. How you can think a 2 year difference between it and KH3 means one is ok and the other isn't is just insane.

Square Enix is purposely hiding the game, they keep begging us to be patient with them. 8 years if patient enough. There are people who've graduated college/university and started a family waiting for this goddamn game and now don't have the time to play it when it comes out next winter.

This isn't fine, this isn't ok, this is unacceptable and FFXV comparisons to Duke Nukem Forever are starting to become more and more warranted.

[Summons75]

comparisons between this and DNF are not warranted. If you were an actual gamer you would know DNF went through MULTIPLE cancellations, developers, restarts, and never had a clear direction. FFXV has had a clear direction that got too ambitious for the ps3 so they had to move it to ps4 with a new engine which basically meant rebuilding from the ground up. I'd rather them work on it than hype it up so we know as little as possible about the game so we can enjoy it like ACTUAL gamers and be surprised by everything.

You've always been an extremely biased, impatient troll and clearly never actually looked into it when it was called vs13. We knew all the troubles they had, that Hamlet was inspiration for the story. In small amounts through tweets or interviews but they were there. We got a TON of gameplay last year Personally I wish they would give us an english trailer soon but I'd rather them concentrate to make the best game they can than hype up what they don't. They announced Kingdom Hearts 3, it's in development, people have gone through middle/high schools and college and started families since KH2 was released and released spin off after spin off with no word on 3 at all. We know about XV let us hear about KH3, why is that going dark.

[DragonKnight]

Comparisons between this and DNF are warranted when you find out that this game went through engine AND story changes, had its development halted to churn a trilogy only you like, had its development halted for an MMO that's just like any other MMO, and is STILL being hidden after 8 years. The information we get about the game is minuscule at best and we're always told to be patient with them, then when Square-Enix FINALLY decides to bless us with information, it's always at the most random of moments and is rarely of actual substance. Case in point the latest trailer they released of supposedly "new" gameplay was actually gameplay from a year ago they thought everyone forgot about with a few seconds of new stuff.

They've had 8 years. 8. There comes a point where you can't say they are working on it and have to say they don't know what the hell they want to do with it and don't want us to know that.

Yes I'm biased. I'm biased because I have been a Final Fantasy fan since the very beginning. I know where the franchise comes from, what it's capable of, and I expect it to live up to the pedigree it made for itself. Unlike you, who is satisfied with a piss poor trilogy of FFXIII and is just willing to take any phoned in effort that Square Enix is willing to put out, I actually demand something from FF.

There is no excuse for a game to take this long in development. No excuse to hide tidbits of minuscule information behind Japanese twitter accounts, and no excuse to be begging the fanbase for patience. If they couldn't make the game, they shouldn't have bothered to start it. They are avoiding actually showing this game because they know that they'll get hammered for taking 8 years to accomplish next to nothing. It's easy for a development studio to develop show pieces to tide people over, but they don't even get that right.

Square Enix has been far too interested in the mobile microtransaction market, and outsourcing development, and westernizing their games to the point that they've forgotten their very identity. 8 years Summons, 8 goddamn years. You actually have the gall to have Kefka as your avatar pic and then talk the way you do. Sakaguchi could sh*t out masterpieces like FFVI in his sleep, and you're sitting here trying to justify an 8 year wait for this game and being pleased with the less than mediocre trash that Square Enix has been giving us in the meantime?

Like I said, get off of Square Enix's balls.

[Adrian_v01]

"I demand a quality final fantasy game but I'm pissed off when they take time to make it!"

You are aware that the game hasn't been in development for 8 years, right?

[DragonKnight]

"I demand a quality final fantasy game but I'm pissed off when they take time to make it!"

I hate it when people use sarcasm stupidly. Any number of studios have been able to make high quality games that didn't take 8 years to make. Even Squaresoft and Enix when they were separate companies. There's no excuse or justification.

Actually it has been. I'm not counting the reboot development process as a new development process. It was announced in 2006 as being part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series and because FFXIII and Versus XIII didn't have the same development team there's nothing to suggest that it didn't begin its development simultaneously, especially considering they shared the same engine.

[Adrian_v01]

Actually it hasn't been. True, it's their fault they announced it so early, but the PS3 couldn't handle it. Look at the FFversus13 trailer from 2011 and look at the trailer from last year. I am ready to wait if the change is that immense.

And dude, calm down, it's a game. You know you're gonna buy it anyways no matter when it comes out.

[DragonKnight]

How many studios do you know that announce a game they haven't been working on? Even the initial stages of development? It definitely has been in development for 8 years. I believe you're referencing that bit of news a few years ago where SE said that it began full on development of the game, I believe it was after FFXIII finally launched, but full on doesn't mean development just started, it means they have reallocated the resources they took for FFXIII and FFXIV and repositioned them to work on VersusXIII//XV

I don't buy games I know next to nothing about.

[kewlkat007]

I'm very surprised.. That game had been in development for a while and nothing to show, nothing, at E3? I would even a newer build of last year's gameplay would suffice.

[Ratty]

I don't think development time before last year's E3 counts that much. The project changed direction sometime before that when they decided to make it multiplatform and more action-oriented.

Basically what I mean is the current FFV build has probably only been in development for a few years at best.

[Adrian_v01]

But.. no, FFV has been released since 1992...

[Ratty]

Yeah my "X" key is broken.

[Syakinta]

Maybe SE has nothing new to show currently, same as TLG.

[Godmars290]

Nor was it the other eight times, but then a couple of instances they leaked footage.

What gets me is that in the meantime they made two high performance graphics engines, which likely involved lots of R&D money, and neither are apparently being use to make this game.

[MightyNoX]

I'm unsure if it's reflective of the Japanese struggles with the HD age or simply a case of SE being directionless and incompetent.

[clide88]

My money is on Square Enix not adjusting well. Not trying to hate on XIII, but Toriyama cited its linear gameplay as a product of trying to finish the game in a reasonable amount of time but not knowing how else to do so at the graphic level the game operated on. (I'm paraphrasing, obviously.)

It seems that, in both the case of that game as well as XV, they just don't know how to keep up with current-gen technology, and employed two vastly different approaches (rushing XIII and taking far too long on XV).

[criticalkare]

Not surprised at all...skipping another console generation coming... change the title to FF16 coming to PS5 and xbox

[Eamon]

They're forgetting that S-E said they will definitely be releasing new information after E3.

Means that it's mostly likely appearing at TGS. TGS has always been the big show for Japanese companies.

My guess is that they'll show a new trailer that'll announce a release window. Perhaps Summer 2015 for japanese version and Q42015 for Western version.

[silkrevolver]

It's not that it worries me... it's just that I really want to see more of it.

I want a gameplay demo. I want to see how the thing is played. I want to see if it has a cool progression system, how armor and weapons work, etc.

Waiting any longer, at this point, is just annoying.

[HeavenlySnipes]

I still believe they literally haven't done anything with the game for years other than the same bit they've shown us 3 times already over the past 6 years

Won't be surprised if we don't see this game until 2016 and the enormous hype behind it makes it turn out extremely disappointing because it'll be a 8 year wait for a game that probably only will have 2 years in development

[clide88]

I'm calling it for 2016, as well. If they have absolutely nothing to show at E3, I don't anticipate it making a 2015 release. They may have promised to show something after E3, but that doesn't inspire much confidence for a release in the near future.

[con4g23]

they could atleast show a new trailer that shows the characters' skills/overdrive or summon :s

[e-p-ayeaH]

If this game bombs after all the hype troughout the years its gonna bomb harder than DNF.

[DEATHxTHExKIDx]

I'll let this slide if it shows up at TGS but my hype for E3 dropped like 50%. I have low expectations for everyone now.

[mt]

show me one screenshot , and just tell me the release date. and I'll be happy.

[Blacklash93]

Square Enix's game development is mess, plain and simple. They repurposed Versus XIII in XV, which was announced back in 2006 which is an 8-year development period at this point. XV is likely going to be the similar to the mess XIII became.

[Qrphe]

There is not one thing that I feel will make overcome FFXV's absence from E3 this year.

[maximus1985]

im going to go out on a limb and say that theres NO WAY they wont announce ff15 info. uh oh the limbs SHAAAKING

[thejigisup]

Im getting a duke nukem forever feeling in the pit of my stomach

[yokokoroma]

No, it's not a good thing...it means something is internally wrong with SE. This is the game that is suppose to set a new precedent for the FF franchise, and return it to it's roots. I can say right now (after watching the footage from last years E3), that the games combat system is horrible. If this combat system is in the final product, the FF series is done.