DLC is the future
[Spoilers ahead for Final Fantasy XV. You have been warned.]
Speaking with Polygon at Gamescom, director Hajime Tabata spoke about the future for Final Fantasy XV. The director talked about some of the pros and cons of creating a proper sequel. In particular, he focused on how people move on from a franchise during the development time of a sequel. So instead of a proper game, the team decided to work on smaller installments for the existing game instead.
It’s an interesting approach to say the least.
The upcoming Comrades expansion is one of the examples Tabata uses to show why it makes more sense to focus and improve on the initial game. Much like how the episodes for Gladious, Ignis, and Prompto are fleshing out missing parts of the game’s story, Comrades will also be fleshing out a major period of time during the game. To keep things as vague as possible for those who haven’t played yet, a time skip of 10 years happens in the later half of the game, and Comrades will be taking place during it.
Tabata states that it would have been hard to do a traditional, full-scale sequel for that time period, but this approach works for maintaining a relationship with fans. I personally don’t believe so, as a 10-year time period is huge and there’s a lot to potentially explore there in terms of world building and character development. Whether or not Comrades succeeds at what it sets out to do remains to be seen, as closed online tests only started recently.
Finally, the director brings up that we could potentially see more episodic installments down the road. Meaning the recently announced PC port that is being hailed as the definitive version may not be the end of the road. It’s likely that everything that we saw on the survey for DLC way back in May, or at least the story content, will become a reality at some point. Another VR game, like the upcoming Monster of the Deep, is also in the cards.
Square may have taken 10 years to launch Final Fantasy XV, but they are sure aiming for 10 years of DLC at this rate. It’s the game that will never die!
Don’t expect a Final Fantasy 15 sequel [Polygon]
