An open-world Final Fantasy 16 ‘would’ve taken 15 years to make’, claims producer

From VGC: "Final Fantasy 16’s producer has claimed that the reason the game doesn’t have an open world is because it would have taken a decade and a half to make.

In a new interview in the latest issue of Famitsu magazine, Naoki Yoshida explained that he felt other elements were more important to him in defining what made a Final Fantasy game, and that trying to make it open-world on top of everything else would have been a step too far.

“When I played the first Final Fantasy, I thought ‘this is a movie-like gaming experience’,” Yoshida explained (as translated for VGC by contributor Robert Sephazon)."

[Nitrowolf2]

Tbh

I don’t think anyone’s really asking for a whole lot when it comes to a big open world because I think they could easily get away with a PS1 classic style overworld and even shove the gameplay and Random Encounters

I would be alright with that. Just some type of overworks that connects locations

[lucian229]

just no, no random encounters. one of the worst gameplay features to ever exist.

[Zeldafan64]

I have always preferred random encounters. Then again that's all I played for my first 10 years of playing rpgs.

[Germaximus]

random encounters is the best way to grind for levels. the set enemies in an area is garbage

[CrimsonWing69]

Exactly this, we don't need some crazy expansive open world where it take 30 minutes to get where we want. A simple overworld map to locations is perfect. Look at Ni No Kuni if you want to see an example of this in modern gaming.

The problem is the people at Square refuse to make the games like they used to be. Instead of looking at mechanics as genre defining, they view them as archaic. I remember this guy saying with guns asking why would you want to wait for turn-based combat to fire a weapon? Instead of looking at the mechanic as strategic and a staple of JRPG mechanics.

I think FF7 Remake battle system had the best of both worlds. I'm excited for FF16, but some of the things I hear from the producer makes me lose faith in the company.

[shinoff2183]

FF7 r wouldve been 100 if it wouldve included a real turn based battle system. I feel they are gonna cheap out with the overworld map in ff7r 2. Just a gut feeling. Square used to be on it. They couldnt miss. Anything from them lately though eh. I did like lost sphear, and I am setsuna but I think they were just published by square.

[shinoff2183]

I remember the president of square said japanese devs shouldnt just copy western devs or something like that. Well they kinda have with all the action games they put out anymore.

[shinoff2183]

Id prefer an overworld. Its one of the things new ff games just are missing. An overworld in a jrpg is a pretty big deal to me.

Id also like them to bring back turn based battles Please do it for atleast a few new games. Not everything has to be mindless action with a couple cute moves. Id be alright with random encounters or running into the enemy. Id prfer random but I can live without it.

[-Foxtrot]

No no Kuni kind of had a good idea of the open world

Maybe use that as a concept

[shinoff2183]

Ni no kuni was one of my fav ps3 games with fallout and the last of us. By far the best ps3 rpg

[Pyrofire95]

Interesting. Yeah I don't think i've seen that kind of overworld past the PSone generation.
I don't know if random encounters is still a great idea. It got the job done before but it's a bit of an old solution to combat scenarios.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I wouldn't mind how Bravely Default does random encounters, make it so the player can increase/decrease the encounter rate, I think that's a fair compromise (so you can choose if you just want to explore/get from A to B or just grind).

[masterfox]

if thats the way of thinking by some of the members of SE so then, SE needs some serious reorganization inside the company cause that statement doesnt make any freaking sense!, 15 years thats complete BS talking!, for Versus was like 10 or more years but it took that time cause the development / planning of it was a complete mess, and the SE devs had to start over and over the design of that game. Look at Kojima how much it took to create Death Stranding an insane awesome deep looking game and open world as well, hell Kojima even created a brand new company and still be able to deliver such an incredible game in such short time. So yeah SE dont come with your BS PR nonsense.

[lucian229]

if you want a good open world with actual full kingdoms it would take a while. People are tired of boring openworld games

[-Gespenst-]

What Yoshida is saying is that the game's story spans an entire world / planet, and to make a detailed open-world that size would take too long.

Think of almost any open-world game - they're usually just a city, or a continent, not a whole world, and even then, they are scaled down significantly. Final Fantasy XV was a single continent too, and as big as it was, it was scaled down (plus lots of invisible walls and empty space).

They could make the entire world of the game and scale it down, but it would feel way too small then. That's one of the downsides of open-worlds - despite their size, they still feel small compared to what they're supposed to be. Very few open-world games are to scale, and this would be particularly noticeable in an open-world that was supposed to be an entire planet, unless they filled it with huge expanses of boring, empty space.

I think they made the right choice. Plus, I'm pretty sure that there will be open areas to explore. Good enough for me.

[lucian229]

this all day (likely why Starfield will be bad lol) no game has really done a full scale planet yet; let alone thousands of planets

[MrCrimson]

I think actually it was a good way of thinking. He's focused on delivering a good gaming experience and a thrilling story; which really are the tell-tale elements of a good final fantasy game; and they've gotten away from that in the recent years - so I like that he realizes where his development resources should best be spent.

Just as an FYI - this guy revitalized FF14, and while I don't like MMOs; I have heard from many people that the story telling is top tier.

[Pyrofire95]

Versus isn't a good example. The game was announced in 06 but barely worked on as the team kept being reassigned different work, like assisting with XIII. Final Fantasy is a different game that took elements but is a different game that started development in 2011 and released in 2016.
DS is also a very different game where the main gameplay is the traversal itself is an big system that can just be applied to any of the games environments. A game like that didn't require a lot of different assets, just good landscape design to suggest player action. Also every mission is from simple and similar hubs with quest screens. That kind of design doesn't work for a Final Fantasy game where unique people, towns, and monsters make up a whole varried world.
For the record I really like DS but they are completely different beasts. It was really smart of Kojima Productions to make that kind of game for their first one.

[RedDevils]

How about No open world. Because that is boring especially in JRPG games.

[Inverno]

Sure if you're planning to make a simulated world, otherwise you probably just suck at time management. Which seeing as this is SE then yeah with the game going through development hell it'd take about that long and still end up being a disappointment.

[GoodGuy09]

Just needs good story and gameplay. Levels and towns aren't too restricted, are returnable, and are of good quality. Stop listening to the open world extremists thinking every game needs one.

Ffxvs world was amazing aesthetic wise but exploration was horrible. Open worlds need to be more about good explortation and fun than looking pretty and just being there to look big.

[Furesis]

Yeah it's a tricky thing. A simplified over world would work like the old games but SE these days is all about "high quality" so i don't see them doing that which is a shame. I agree with you on the open world extremists part. Look at FF X, it is one of the most popular ff games and that game also has no open world, just a map where you move from place to place. Although it was turn based so, i don't know.
Truth be told I dont much care what SE does these days, since it's not the same company anymore that made those old games that i loved, but this looks good, open world or not.

[andy85]

So he's basically saying any future FF title will never be open world? Other smaller companies manage to make them in far less time. Seems like a bit of a get out and implied FF7 Rebirth will be more closed off than we thought

[Eonjay]

It really depends on the scale and level of detail. For example, in a game like No Mans Sky, you have generated planets that lack fine granular detail. If granular detail is an aspect of this game, making an entire open wolrd to scale in a game like this where you are on adventure that extends across an entire world may be a bit too much. On top of that he says that the summons can destroy the map. So keeping the detail super high across a destructable planet sized open world would be a huge task for any team.

[stupidusername]

No. He is literally saying FF16 will take 15 years, not all FF games.

[Cackocacho]

Right. This coming from the same company that claimed remaking one game, would require making three games.

If you still listen to SE PR bulls***, well, you're part of the problem with this hobby's comical rate of downward trajectory.

[Eonjay]

Actually they said that originally FF7:R was gonna be 2 games but when you take into account all of the content from all of the FF7 games that is going into this, you're base material is already 3 games wide. Plus, they are fleshing out the details of the original in a way that just makes it longer in the first place.

[jznrpg]

No need for open world .
I don’t think it would take 15 years and that was an exaggeration but to do it well and not be a lot of emptiness like BoTW in many spots and like some other games you need to put a elot of time for sure and really is it worth it as it limits you to some extent as well.
I don’t mind linearity in games as you can go a lot of places that way , planets whatever, but open world makes you stick to one large map generally . There are plenty of open world games out there anyway

[Muigi]

Seeing how long it takes for them to make a mainline Kingdom Hearts title this sounds accurate.

[shinoff2183]

So that tells me it wont even have a overworld map. Itll be just like ff10. Whuch imo was the worst part of ff10 the cheap way you moved town to town

[Bahamut-Shin]

it will have big zones like FF12 or more like FF14 since it is from the same team.
with that said they want the summons to have battles in those zones they need to be big enough for them to fight (and Titan alone is way too big), if you have any doubt take about how the zones can look take a look at these 2 zones in FF14:
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[metalgod88]

The story better be freakin' amazing man haha.

[on_line_forever]

I want to ask square enix why they ignore vagrant story and parasite eve ?

Give vagrant story to fromsoftware to develop it

[Dimbduck]

I'd take a highly detailed hand crafted environment over a open world any day in a RPG. Everyone thinks they want an open world but i feel like its really only necessary when if it elevates the gameplay. For example in Horizon you can use the environment of the open world to your advantage when engaging the robots. It in turn elevates the gameplay. It doesn't really make sense in a game like FFXVI where it's so story focused. They tried to do it in FFXV and you got a world map that had like 1 larger town and a bunch of gas stations. I'd argue that the world map in XV was bland and didn't help the gameplay or the story. It just made the game feel empty. If you want an open world just because the PS1 FF games had one then you really have to ask yourself why. Was being on the overworld really that memorable in FFVII or FFVIII? Or do you remember the handcrafted backgrounds of the town and cities in those games that helped each location feel unique and interesting. I know which one I'd rather have.

[durran3]

We already have the brilliant FF14 for that - let single players be a good linear experience

[Eonjay]

“[...] because this is Final Fantasy. I want a summon to go wild and destroy the map. I want to release this game as soon as possible[...]

I think he is alluding to destrunction that would be hard to do in an open world setting. Can you really destroy the map and is this destruction persistant and evolving?

[Godmars290]

Then maybe you shouldn't put your game in a "world"?

[XiNatsuDragnel]

I don't mind this tbh

[Godmars290]

But what if they went back to overworlds and dungeons?

[Samonuske]

Open world is overrated anyway, secondly let’s actually see if the game is good before we have a hissy fit.. FFX is still considered one of the best in the series.

[Exvalos]

Problem is most open worlds are open for the sake of being able to say there open, with little to do besides some random fetch quests. Tbh rockstar seems to be the only developer that can make open world games that feels alive and full of life. But Truth Is look at how long it takes now between gta games. So whoever it said it would have taken over a decade to make probably is to far off from the truth.

[whitbyfox]

How can Xenoblade have 3 games, open world, cover hundreds of miles. On ‘inferior’ hardware.

Because Nintendo are better.

[MrCrimson]

This guy gets it.

[talocaca]

Well, for FFXV they sent a team to Italy to scan rocks.....yet the story was a mess. So I understand that it might take 15 years....that doesn't mean it should.

[Pyrofire95]

Not only is it more expensive to make an open world game with such high fidelity, but I think people understand open worlds better and that it's a lot of open spaces filled with filler.
They have their place and some of my favorite game are OW, but I also really love a focused experience and to not spend SO much time to play through just one game.

[Lennoxb63]

No, you just need to hire people who can make open world games. Ubisoft cranks out multiple in a lot less time.

[SeTTriP]

Don't they already have the assets for a open world with ff15?

I don't get it.

[DarXyde]

In a strange way, the absence of an open world (in an RPG of all things) could be a bit refreshing.

Last generation, there was no shortage of open world games. It's a strange genre to pull back on that in, but maybe it works. Who knows?

[Pedantic91]

Good, video games can be fun without open world. Didn't have it back then and is not a necessity nor a requirement today.

I still maintain the notion that Breath of the Wild is the only game to make a fun open world as of yet.
You're given the options and the tools to affect the enviroment and objects around. Almost everywhere you went there was something you could do. Set fire to the grass to create an updraft, use said updraft to elevate yourself and glide around. Manipulate objects with your magnet, chop down a tree, create a make shift raft.

Most open world game don't really have that. And most people don't know what they want when it comes to open world.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I feel like the open-world structure was part of the reason they struggled to finish 15 (that and the chopping and changing the story/development hell).

[Binarycode]

I prefer a streamlined world. Going to the edge of every bit takes too long and many times is not engaging. I'd rather just enjoy the experience with big moments. .

[DefaultComment]

So based on what I read I take it like this is Final Fantasy XIII all over again? ok fine by me BUT people better not complain about this.